


Coda on the edge of the stars

by Albione



Series: Ad Aspera ad Astra [2]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me By Your Name - All Media Types, Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M, Mild Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-06-05 07:54:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 33
Words: 41,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15166091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Albione/pseuds/Albione
Summary: Scenes of Oliver and Elio finally together after Per Aspera ad Astra. Problems, doubts, laughter, family and friends.





	1. It Is a Surprise

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, I wrote some scenes of Elio and Oliver together. Just some drabbles on how they get on, problems, angst, fluff, the usual. There will be Oliver’s sons, Tiziano makes an appearance, Teresa and Elena play and I was thinking of giving Richard a happy ending. Of course, enthusiasm brings along her ugly sister, self-doubt. So I was wondering if it is a good idea… Will publish the ones I have written, we will see if I have the courage to write the rest.

I was waiting for the summer. Just a week of Oliver over Easter was not enough. I felt like throwing my work out of the window and running off to him just with the clothes on my back; not that I needed clothes with him. Phone sex was almost a torture; all I remembered of his taste had refilled me with a never ending want. Just the thought of a whole summer with him was making me dizzy with longing and desire.

We called each other before my bedtime as to invade the dreams of the other.   
“I cannot believe it is only a week till I see you… Elio, Elio, Elio…” I feel like swallowing the phone.

“Yes, a week without my Oliver next to me” His voice was going deeper and deeper and I was ready to place my hand into my boxers. Then silence on the other side. “Elio? Oliver, what is wrong?”

“Sorry, I was just thinking. I have a surprise for you when I arrive” I could tell he was smiling.

“I am too old for surprises, tell me!” I could feel the seed of panic in my voice, but Oliver was oblivious, he could not know that my expression was changing from arousal to worry.  
“Never too old for surprises! Wait till next week!” He seemed sad that all my libido went and we finished the conversation.

Surprises have never been good; nature has ways of surprising me and poking at my weak spots. So I wonder what Oliver is going to surprise me with. He has changed his mind? Cannot bear the thought that anybody at work will find out he is with a man? Or has he seen Sarah and they have decided to try again for the sake of the boys? That is the most probable scenario; he loves his sons so much.

I could not sleep, I kept imagining all the versions of Oliver’s surprise; there he was at Fiumicino arrivals with Sarah with him. Or holding his return ticket for the next flight out after he had had the “talk” with me. Or the biggest surprise, no Oliver just a text or a phone call to tell me that he had thought it over and holding on to the past was silly.   
I could feel a panic attack starting. “Grow up Elio; it is not possible that just a phrase from Oliver turns you back into a needy frightened seventeen year-old!” Of course all the things I was imagining were impossible, I knew it at a rational level, but there was never anything rational about my feelings for Oliver.  
Oliver could undue me so easily I was frightened. The past was still just under shallow waters ready to raise itself. Not having him next to me so that I could see his expression made it worse. I could not cope, it would kill me. A long distance relationship could not work, not with the past we had.

“Break it off, break it off now Elio, he will hurt you again, he has all the power, always had it” The voice in my mind was getting louder. I took the sleeping pills I had hoped I would never need again and just dropped into a dreamless sleep.

The next few days were a haze and I was dreading the phone calls with Oliver. Realising that I still had such a pit of hurt and fear undid me; he could tell that there was something wrong but I just told him that there were some problems at work. Work, a universal code between adults trying to hide what is really happening to them. I am sure Oliver used it too.  
Here I was, approaching forty, and I was once more a frightened teenager that could not cope with the fears that love brings along for the ride. After longing to see him I was now dreading it.

Waiting at the arrivals in Fiumicino airport I tried to be calm, but not really sleeping for a week was taking its toll. I could see him, tall and dashing, but I did not walk towards him, I just waited for him to come to me. I then noticed the oversized bag and his unsure expression.  
“Elio… I think my enthusiasm got the better of me…” He looked so lost I had to smile; the past was such a burden for both of us, I keep forgetting that.

“Sorry Oliver, I was a whiny teenager; let’s get home and we can clear the air. By the way, are you carrying a body in your bag?” He was having difficulty putting it into the car boot.

“Well, the surprise is that the university has agreed for me to have a sabbatical and I was thinking of moving to Italy for the year. Was hoping I could stay with you, but I now realise that not talking about it was presumptuous and arrogant. I am sorry; I seem to go from extreme to the other.”

“A year? Here?” I could hardly put the key into the car, my hands were trembling. Oliver in the same continent, same country, same city.   
“I can look for a short term flat, so do not worry; I looked online and there are a few small and nice places, I can understand you need your space, I just wanted to spend more time next to you.”

I rested my head on the steering wheel, all my irrational fears had not prepared me for this; only for the worse scenarios, and I was unsure what I wanted to say. You can spend a year in my bed was not the right answer at the moment. 

“Elio?” There was mounting panic in his voice; he was probably thinking he was being dumped in the car park of Fiumicino airport; left standing with an oversized bag and shattered enthusiasm.

I turned towards him, kissed him gently on the lips and looked straight into his eyes for the first time since he arrived “No need to look for a flat Elio, you know that my home is yours since the first time you arrived in Italy; even my Rome flat, not just the villa. But I realise that twenty years of hurt cannot be wiped away easily; let us walk side by side and conquer each and every fear that hides within us together.”

As Oliver crushed me with a hug I could only add “No more surprises though, I do not like them, never did, never will”


	2. E il naufragar m'e' dolce in questo mare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver drowning in his feelings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I cannot write erotica or smut; I always think I am going to win the bad sex prize...  
> E il naufragar m'e' dolce in questo mare is the last line of Leopardi's poem Infinito; It is sweet to drown in this sea.

I never thought I could hurt so much, I never knew I had muscles in so many places; Elio has wrecked me. He looks so young and innocent sleeping next to me, his hand under his cheek, lips slightly parted and curls falling on his brow. I would have an erection looking at him if I had not been spent. 

Last night was unreal. He started by straddling me and then slowly pressing me into himself, moving his hips slowly; savouring every second and meeting my slow thrusts. His expression was blissful and as he rubbed his hands down my chest and stomach he always stopped at my groin, running his fingertips across my skin. He was as excited as I was and I stroked him with the rhythm of the thrusts; I felt it could go on all night, except my back could not. Once we both came, he quietly started stroking me, and his fingers lingered in the crease between my buttocks. As my breathing became ragged again, he slowly prepared me with his fingers and entered me in such a natural way, as he had done it thousands of times, but not with me.

That thought was keeping me awake; the difference between an eager but fearful seventeen year old and this man twenty years later so confident and assured. I was jealous of the men before me; I had been faithful to my wife except once, and it hurt me to remember that one time, while Elio had been living experiences, loving other men. I was ashamed of my jealousy, it was not his choice to be away from me; he had not been unfaithful, I was the one that broke our ties.

We were both the sum of the years, and they were many years apart. But the parallel lives we had never lessened the bonds, this elective affinity that kept us bound when the years and geography tried to tear us asunder. I resist the temptation to caress the sleeping Elio, I want to enjoy looking at him, trying to memorise every inch of his features in case we are ever separated again. This time it will not be my choice, but he could well decide that I am not the man he needs or wants; it is his right to do so, I do not have a claim over him and I do not want to have it. 

I love the adult Elio, probably more than I loved the adolescent; I did not know then how love can push you towards dreams, how the loved one can become the centre of your universe. Any pain I think Elio feels burns me, I wasn’t like that twenty years ago; I made decisions for what I thought was our, my, good, and I paid for it.   
I love this man sleeping next to me because he is the sum of his years and the loves in his life; the magnificent boy is now such a splendid man he burns my eyes. 

Elio stirs and reaches out to me, only me, a daily miracle.   
“Oliver, are you awake? What time is it?”

“It is six, early still.” I run my fingers down his arm and he bestows to me, just to me, one of his wicked smiles turning a corner of his upper lip.  
“Never too early or too late…”

“No Elio, I am spent! Have pity on an old man whose back is hurting. I could not have another round, it would kill me.”

“Sure?” He runs his hand over my cock that responds immediately; traitor, my body was trying to make up on lost time, and it is a lot of lost time.  
I roll over on top of him muttering “You will be the death of me” and stifle his laughter.

But he knew, as well as I know, that it is sweet to drown in this sea. This sea of passion.  
E il naufragar m'e' dolce in questo mare.

And each time we venture into the sea we discover new lands we never imagined and skies of varied colours; I see an infinity of Elios that I never knew existed, each one more fascinating than the last till I cannot even imagine who the final Elio will be; how could I a mere mortal face him?

I kiss him deeply curling my fingers into his curls as to keep him from vanishing; for if this is a dream I want to sleep forever.   
“Oliver, Oliver…” I whisper into his mouth.  
“Elio, Elio, Elio”   
And with that I am at peace with our pasts, since they have brought us to this moment.


	3. To speak or die

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elio and Oliver explain to Marzia’s daughters the importance to speak.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the kudos!  
> The Heptameron is not a book for young children, I agree with Oliver, but, I feel that Marzia’s daughters could deal with it.

As I am in the kitchen preparing apricot juice for Elio and Marzia’s daughters, that have been left with us so she and Luca could have some time alone, I hear Elio’s voice from the garden.

“So the knight asks: Is it better to speak or die?”  
“And did he?” Elena’s voice is full of wonder.  
I rush into the garden and grab Elio’s wrist. “Elio, can you help me for a moment?” He looks surprised and the girls scowl at me  
“Just let me finish the story…” The girls nod in agreement with his words.  
“Please Elio just a moment. I will bring him back to you bambine in a few minutes.” My smile is the dazzling wonder boy smile. I still have a few masks handy to choose from.

As soon as we are out of earshot I turn to him.  
“Elio are you mad? Telling the girls a story about attempted rape, suicide, domestic abuse and infidelity? You can be as liberal as you like, but I do not think Marzia will approve…”

“So you did read it all in the end!”  
Elio’s smile tempts me to kiss him there and then; keeping the emotion in check I remember the boy in front of me asking if it was better to speak or die; It is better to die I told myself, and I did. He spoke for both of us but that did not help him in the long run.

“Of course I read it! And was quite shocked, but that’s the French for you. If you intend telling them the story you’d better change it! White wedding and lived happily ever after.”  
“But life is not like that, is it?” I could not read his expression; I wonder if it was the one he had during the blank years. It hurt me, but there was nothing I could do; it has been and never can be undone. 

“Life is like that Elio, but life is also like this now. Here we are in the kitchen in the villa and I have the urge to kiss you and do much worse, but this time I can follow my urge, once Elena and Teresa have gone, of course.”

“Definitely, I think Marzia could forgive us telling her daughters the story of the knight and lady in ALL the gory detail but a graphic lesson about the birds and the bees between two men would be a step too far! Never mind Mafalda’s reaction if we defiled the kitchen table.”

I cupped his face and our noses were touching, I was just going to kiss him when Elena ran into the kitchen shouting “Teresa has been stung by a bee!” and we could hear howls from the garden.  
We sprang to Teresa, Elio picking her up and reassuring her while I had grabbed the first aid box and picked out the sting and placed ice and lotion on her arm. She stopped crying and asked why the bad bee stung her.  
“Because it was frightened, you are so big so it attacked before you could” Elio explained. “But it died! Why not run away?” Elena was perplexed by the bee’s behaviour.  
“It sacrificed itself hoping to save all the other bees; that is what friends do. Sometimes it is very stupid and not needed like in this case, but all of us can act without thinking and do stupid things without thinking of the consequences or asking for advice.”

“So it is better to speak than die?”  
“Yes Elena, it is always better to speak and say aloud what is in your heart, otherwise there will be twenty-one years of hurt.” I say with conviction.  
“Exactly twenty-one years?” She looks surprised at the exact number of years that at her age seem eternal. 

“Not quite an exact number of years, it varies” Elio smiles gently at the girls, “But our knight spoke! And the lady was overcome with love for him, she threw herself in his arms and they kissed and got married the next day! They both lived one hundred years in happiness and had four children as beautiful as they were!” Elio puts down Teresa that has stopped crying and taking the hands of both girls leads them to the table in the shade of the pergola. “Now let us draw the castle they lived in. If it is a Sixteenth century castle, what type of fortifications would it have?” 

I watch them settling down and discuss what to draw and as I turn to go back into the kitchen I thank the gods that I was given a second chance. Twenty-one years was not a bad price to pay for all the happiness I feel in this moment.


	4. My Lover’s Sons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver’s sons arrive at the villa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying to immagine Elio and Oliver's sons meeting.   
> Thanks for the kudos!

At the end of July Oliver’s sons came to the villa. I was not sure when and what he told them about us. They were both handsome young men. Alex was so similar to the young Oliver that I thought I was having hallucinations; tall and blond but very sweet. Julian must take after the mother, shorter and with light brown hair and grey eyes; he carried himself with a swagger, probably to hide his fears. I knew he had come out to the family and would be starting physics at college in the fall while Alex was studying history.  
They were both very polite and I could tell they were unsure how much they could be themselves in this new world their father was living in. I could understand their unease, but I was not sure what I could do to make them relax. Oliver was just happy to have them with him.  
I decided to give them all space and time for each other, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible.

One morning Oliver cornered me in the bathroom as I was washing my face.  
“Is there something wrong Elio?”  
“No, why?”  
“You are ignoring the three of us; never really join the conversations or go out with us.”

He sounded hurt and defensive; his sons were very important to him, quite rightly more than I was; looking at the towel I replied in the in a tone that I hoped sounded relaxed.  
“You goose, I am trying to give you all space; you haven’t seen them for months. I don’t want to intrude on the limited time you have.”

“Elio, this is your house, and you and my sons are my family. You have the right and the duty to intrude; I want you to intrude and take up all the space. I need you all to get to know each other.”

“I am sorry, I was wrong. I suppose I am a bit frightened in case they hate me, I will try to be more present. But you are also wrong; this is also your house. It is our house.”

I thought over what he had said, and in fact I had been avoiding them, I am not used to children, apart from Marzia’s little monsters, and young men were a totally different world; I really did not know how to communicate with them, I did not know how to communicate with my peers when I was the same age; and I was feeling guilty, fearing they rightly accused me of the end of Oliver’s marriage.

One morning I arrived late at breakfast and there was only Alex at the table; Oliver and Julian were playing baseball; I do not know where he found the energy, he complained I wrecked him last night; the presence of his sons energized him.  
We sat in silence at the table watching the baseball practice, I sipping my coffee hoping to become human and Alex just observing his father. Oliver was laughing and running around; he seemed so carefree.

“I remember being here once before, I was six, with mum and dad. I must have met your parents, they were very nice. But you were not at the villa.” His voice was very quiet.

“I was in the states for work, I remember my mother phoning me with the news.” And hearing Oliver’s voice break while repeating “It is so beautiful here”.

“It was a strange day, this is such a beautiful place; I could sense it even as a child. But it was the day I saw my father cry for the first time. It would be another thirteen years till I saw him cry again. My grandparents believe that men do not cry, Julian and I were told off by them often when young for this; it left a strong impression on me seeing him cry, my strong father.”

I was surprised, I have seen Oliver cry many times; happy Oliver, desperate Oliver, Oliver that has runny eyes for a sad film or piece of music. I never thought it was something that was mine alone, I grew up in a household were you did cry as well as laugh, shout, sing, argue and wear all your emotions on your sleeve as a trophy; it could be very tiring sometimes but I am glad that my parents were as they were.

Alex turned towards the coastline as looking for something.  
“Do you want to go for a walk?” I suggested and he agreed; as we went off I could feel Oliver’s gaze on me.

I took him to Oliver’s spot on the shore and the rocks where he spent the summer nights thinking alone and later where we would talk and make out through-out the nights.  
Alex stopped “You know this place? This is where I saw dad crying. Mum was with Julian and I was feeling ignored, so I followed dad. He stopped here and sat on that high rock and sobbed looking out to the sea. I was shocked seeing an adult cry and ran away. Now I know why he was crying, and it hurts.”

Yes, it hurts; I am hurting for Oliver, the boys and Sarah. What a mess we make of the master copy of our lives. Looking at Alex so similar to Oliver standing on the shore I felt as though I was back in time and wondered what to say to this young man and avoid the pain of the past taking root into the future.  
“I know that he was crying about the past but they were tears of guilt towards a seventeen year old boy. He has never regretted being your father; he loves you both so much I am sometimes pathetically at loss. Please Alex, do not hold on to the past, do not make my mistake. “

“No, I hurt for dad, not for myself. Elio I really want to thank you for giving him a second chance. He is so happy, as the father I remember from my childhood, not the unhappy man during my adolescence.”

I really do not know what Oliver has told them, I do not want them to think I am some sort of benevolent god.  
“Do not thank me, I am happy we both had a second chance; believe me, I grabbed the chance given me with both hands greedily.”

Alex smiled. Suddenly we heard shouting behind us, turning we saw Oliver and Julian running towards us competing on who arrived first.  
We all ran into the water and started splashing each other; Oliver picked me up and dropped me into the water. As he was laughing I grabbed his ankles and tripped him over; he was pretending to drown and I saw the boys looking at us with so much tenderness; I pulled up Oliver’s head and kissed him lightly on the lips “Here is the kiss of life couboi.”

Lunch was relaxed, and I found myself really talking to the boys, about their studies and interests; as I was explaining to Alex the via Romea and how he would enjoy following the pilgrim route to Rome, Oliver came from the kitchen with a very large bowl of peaches.   
“Here you are Elio; this should keep you occupied for the rest of the week!”  
I glared at him, I was afraid I blushed; Julian said “There are a lot to eat! Even I could not eat all of them on my own.”  
“But Elio will not eat them; I am not sure if he still needs to study minerals though… ouch”  
I am not sorry to say that the kick I gave him under the table was very hard.  
“Only if you help me to finish them Oliver” and he grinned, I suppose that was a yes.


	5. The Well-Beloved

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver and Elio overhear a conversation…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the kudos...  
> I thought of this chapter thinking about the strange conversation Elio and Oliver have in the book about Hardy’s novel The Well-Beloved.

I was lying on the bed just in my boxers and the window open to catch some night breeze; Elio was spread out lying on his stomach totally naked; I was tempted to bite the buttocks displayed for my delight. I could not sleep and was listening to the cicadas till I heard footsteps on the gravel outside. 

“Shall we have a cigarette before going in Alex?”

The boys were back after a night out. All seemed to have gone well this week, they seemed to be enjoying themselves and there was no hostility towards Elio, the contrary in fact, but we haven’t really talked. Curious, I slipped out of the bed and onto the balcony.  
The boys were chatting about the villa and B and how different Italy seemed to them now from their childhood memories.

“I really like Elio, actually I think he is a DILF or in this case, a SDILF, he is so hot!” Julian suddenly said.

I nearly let out a gasp, I was not expecting that! There was a giggle next to me, Elio had followed me onto the balcony and was grinning like the Cheshire cat.  
“So I seem to have got myself into the Hardy novel after all!” he whispered into my ear.

“Julian! What are you on about?” Alex sounded as shocked as I was.

“Well he is very handsome and stylish; it must be the Italian in him; the way he moves and dresses, the tone of voice and his cheek-bones… I understand dad. One hellova catch.”  
I could imagine Elio’s smug expression; I need to somehow wipe it out before morning. 

“But I thought you had a boyfriend, what about Steve? Have you broken up?”  
“That has nothing to do with finding someone attractive! But there are problems with Steve; you know he will not come out to this parents and it makes me mad that I do not exist when he sees them or is on the phone with them. He keeps telling me that they would not understand, kick him out, disown him, the usual stuff from pathetic conservatives just like grandpa”

Elio hugs me, we have both suffered so much from similar problems and it makes me mad that it still happens. Especially when my son is hurting.

“That’s mad, why want to stay in contact with such parents? I mean after what grandad said about dad, and then when you told him that he was also saying that about you he still continued ranting. I just walked out of the house. I have no intention to have anything to do with people that have no love or understanding. Just look at how much hurt it brought mum and dad; if he could have lived freely they would both have been happy.”

Alex you are such a great man, I am proud of you; I did not know you had broken off with my father; I haven’t talked to my parents for over a year. 

“Wait a minute Alex, I am glad to be here and that you exist. If mum and dad did not marry, we would be still particles in the universe, not much fun!”  
“We would be still here, but different! Mum would have married and still would have had us, but it is true, I would still want to be dad’s son. But all the hurt makes me so sad, even if things have worked out in the end.”

“I suppose I need to give Steve time and understanding, you cannot fight somebody else’s war.” Julian’s voice was low and I could barely hear him.  
They sat in silence finishing their cigarette; both of my boys were growing into magnificent men, I was so proud of them.

Elio started to caress the inside of my arm and kiss my shoulder, I was very aware of his naked body coiled next to me. There would be no sleep tonight.  
\------------  
The next morning the boys and I were bleary eyed, not much sleep for any of us in the house; Elio came down for breakfast and I nearly fell off my chair. He was divine; his curly hair an artistic mess, his eyes with the bedroom look that excited me every single time, he was wearing billowy left casually open and the sleeves rolled up. Julian was looking at him with what I feared was a similar expression as mine. 

Elio greeted all of us with a very knowing smile as he sat down and poured his coffee. I was unsure if I wanted to kiss or slap him. I gave him a slight kick under the table and he immediately started to rub his foot up my leg. It was going to be a long day.

“So, shall we go sightseeing today? There are some magnificent early mediaeval churches that are worth seeing.” The reaction to my proposal was as unenthusiastic as I felt; the general consensus was to laze in the house all day.

I grabbed Elio as the boys ambled to the pool.  
“You are never going to meet my future grandchildren!”  
“Oliver, if your grandchildren find a sixty year old attractive they are gerontophiles and it is not my fault!” He kissed me lightly looking at me with those bedroom eyes.  
“There is only one person I need that finds me attractive; because I find that person so attractive I think I am going mad!” he whispered into my ear.  
We kissed as young lovers do, with anticipation and eagerness; we kissed as we always do, a first kiss as a promise of many more to follow.

“I am only sorry that Julian is going through problems like we did. All the suffering, all the years that have passed and the same shit goes on. I would have loved that he did not go through what we did not only with my parents, that is not a surprise, but with his boyfriend also.”

“Things are getting better Oliver, Julian is proudly out to the world; he has friends, parents that support him and a brother that looks out for him. He is not alone, and those that demean him are dinosaurs that will be extinct soon. Worry about him as a father, but no more than that; he is strong and think of him as he goes into the battle, but the war is his own.”

As usual Elio is right; but he was also fighting the war all those years while I was hiding in my expected life making everybody miserable thanks to my cowardice…

Elio grabbed the collar of my t-shirt “Oliver stop it! Stop feeling guilty right now. The past is the past, and you suffered enough. Take me to bed and ravish me till lunch time.”  
I was no longer surprised how well he read my expressions, only one answer could be given to such an order: “As you wish, my well-beloved!”

As we went up the stairs he took my hand and almost skipping said “Elio, you will have to wear billowy all this week, it has totally lost your scent.”


	6. L’Amour est Morte

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elio dreams and thinks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am back after a week of work hell... and I have managed to write again!  
> Thanks for kudos and comments, love comments.  
> Warning for the mention of non-consensual sex.  
> L’Amour est morte (Love is dead) is from the medieval poem Pauvre Ruteboeuf, it was sung by Léo Ferré, that I am sure Elio knows well, and a version by Joan Baez, that I know well. When I heard the song again I thought of Elio and his life, his loves, his losses.  
> The love that not dare speak its name is a poem by Lord Alfred Douglas and was used against Oscar Wild during his trial; it is used as a euphuism for homosexual love.

I was behind some bushes next to Caracalla in Rome with a man I had just picked up, he was pressing me down and I really did not want him, and as he entered me it hurt, much more than my first time with Oliver, I was whimpering.  
I was back in Jamie’s flat, it was dark, I was sore and that feeling of disgust and shame was washing over me. I saw a light and heard voices behind a closed door “Non voglio sapere, non me ne frega” a loud male voice, “Please listen to me, please…” Jamie’s voice was breaking with sorrow. I was too tired and frightened to think what that conversation was about, I needed to sleep.  
Oliver walks into my room, or was I walking into Oliver’s room that night, that summer? He holds me, my breath is ragged, I am excited, but we are actually in San Clemente, in the dark Mithraeum under the churches, Oliver is pressing into me as I hold onto the altar, each of his grunts is a thrust; I feel my skin against the rough marble, pushed each time against it and the pain is rhythmic. I keep repeating l’amour est morte at each thrust.

I wake up with a start, the dream was so painfully real, and of course it was, they were moments of my life mixed up in some sort of surrealist setting. I turn towards the person sleeping next to me, almost afraid to see who he is, I am not sure where I am, I only know who I am.

Oliver is fast asleep, almost childishly so, his beautiful profile has a vulnerability I have never noticed; probably because I always worshiped him and gods are not vulnerable. I refrain from following the line of his straight nose with my fingertip; I do not want to wake him. Just being in the same bed with him sleeping next to me is a blessing; something I thought would never happen to me again. But the dream? Why this dream? I always thought my dreams gave me answers, as though my brain works things over and then tries to give answers to things I never caught on. 

I remember the night at Caracalla, I archived it as a lesson, not to make myself vulnerable ever again; I had similar experiences, but never with that feeling of loathing and shame, I became in control of my needs and what I was willing to give.  
It reminded me of the feeling after the first night with Oliver; knowing I could never go back to what I was; the act that, as much your family is open minded, society abhors. I was young, I was imbued with the prejudices of society, and I also shared them when the couple from Chicago visited. Remembering how I behaved and what I said about them makes me still feel ashamed.

So was I dreaming my walk through shame? But Jamie? Of course, the shame that he held on his shoulders was just for existing and dying of a shameful illness; it was considered our divine punishment for who we are.  
The shame we are made to feel for loving. Was that Oliver’s terror? I suppose it was; he never speaks of his family but I can imagine the fear he felt at the thought of having to explain me, my existence in his life; he ran away, and I cannot blame him.

We loved each other that summer, but it was not under the sun, but, as a secret religion, in the dark; not daring to kiss in public till that night in Rome. Just before he left me he marked me and that mark was throbbing for twenty years. Like a large scarlet letter upon me I was marked as a sinner; I felt that I was marked as Oliver’s. 

Sometimes, in my lower moments, I resented that summer, but I never really resented Oliver. I might have fantasised about him being alone waiting for me; but it was actually a twisted hope.  
But that summer full of promises, full of first times that I needed to feel them eternal to be alive, that summer that ended leaving me alone and lost, I hated it. 

The love that dare not speak its name; I shall shout this love from the roof tops; I shall paint it on the walls and dare anyone to make me feel ashamed ever again. I love the man sleeping next to me, I love his body and his mind; I am diminished without him, I have been diminished for half my life because he was away. Now that I am whole once more, I shall fight for both of us.  
We are not living in some novel where the only solution for us is death; we have been in a coma, now it is time to live.  
I do not know if that is what the dream was telling me, I do not care. The sun is rising and there is another day to be lived with Oliver, not thinking of Oliver; I have been blessed.

“Elio?” His voice is sleepy; he reaches out to find me as though he had a dream as well and was unsure if I existed. I lace my fingers into his.  
“Elio!” I smile into his lips. This love dares speak its name; it is my name, your name.


	7. A Meeting in the Library

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elio meets Tiziano and needs to confront Oliver on his reluctance of being in Rome.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all of your lovely comments, they have really cheered me up. It is a boost to my writing!  
> At last we meet Tiziano, beautiful Tiziano.  
> Actually, after the week of work hell I have been sucked in by Elio and Oliver and wrote an unexpected chapter that came into my head on Saturday and one chapter I meant to write morphed into two chapters, but I warn you, they are pure angst.

As I take the books back to my table I cannot stop feeling very put out. Oliver seems unwilling to go to Rome, and while I have managed a three day week at the university, leaving B on a Monday and getting back on a Thursday night, I miss him those three days. It is also very tiring.   
He has emailed me four pages of books he needs me to check at the National library; I do have my own work as well you know Americano. Why will you not do it yourself?

While I pick up the first book on the list, a book that has probably not been touched since my father read it over forty years ago, I feel someone behind me. Every single hair on my body tingles in a mixture of dread and expectation; I daren’t turn round. 

“Elio?”  
It is not quite a question, more of a statement, but the tone indicates that he has the same unease that I have. I turn round.

“Tiziano!”

He is as beautiful as he was the day I met him; I feel like I am the emperor Hadrian seeing Antinous aged as though he never died but been away for ten years, never drowned but hid himself; older but still a demi god. 

“Elio, I am so happy to have bumped into you! I see you are hard at work as usual. Shall we go for a coffee and a catch up when we have both finished?” His smile seems honest.

I agree, but I am unsure if it is a good idea. At least he has not tried to strangle me and bash my head onto the desk; that is something. I deserve it.

I am not quite sure how useful Oliver will find the work I am doing for him; my thoughts are all over the place, so I end up photocopying nearly everything; he will have to shift through the pile when I bring them up to the villa, and, quite honestly, serves him right.

Tiziano and I meet outside the library and walk to the bar over the road; it was nosy and as we sit at a small table I start to relax and remember how much I loved him and how he kept so many ghosts at bay. I suppose they were in awe of him as well.  
He runs his hand over his black hair and looks at me with such tenderness I feel I have gone back in time and we are still a couple.

“Elio, I was hoping to see you this week while in Rome, but I did not have the courage to look for you in the faculty.”  
So he is not in Rome, that figures why I never did bump into him.

“You know I would be happy to see you. I feared you still, rightly, hated me. So you are not in Rome any longer?”

“I could never hate you, I now understand the reasons you left me, even if it was a bit brutal.” There was no hurt in his expression; he was stating a simple fact.  
Ouch Tiziano, but you are right, and you have reason to make it difficult for me. I muttered a sorry.

“No Elio, really, it was actually the best thing that could happen to me! It made me take decisions I would never had done on my own or with you that I leaned on. I was so unhappy alone in Rome when you went that I took a doctorate in Canada, and now I teach in Montreal. I am also married!”  
He pulled out his phone and showed me the wedding photo. They looked so happy both in their morning suits.

“Hiro is an anthropologist. We met during a conference. He moved to Canada from Japan for me. Seeing his courage in being openly gay in Japan and how he faced his family made me realise that I also had to stop hiding. It was not easy, but mum still talks to me! I am sorry that I forced you to live a lie when we were together.”  
His eyes were so bright; I think I never saw them as bright when we were together. 

A wave of happiness crashed over me; I had not ruined someone’s life with my fears and weakness. His joy was also my redemption. As much we were in love, we brought out the worse in each other; it was a doomed love, the sweetness we felt was borne of decay.  
We talked about our loved ones; he was pleased that the foggy figure of Oliver that hovered over me had re-appeared in complete form and that at last I was complete again. There was no regret for either of us; we could remember the good times without the pain overwhelming us. And there were good times.

We promised to keep in touch and as I walked back to my apartment I strongly felt the absence of Oliver. I needed to know why Rome made him uncomfortable, what ghosts he feared here. I was ready to move away if it made him happy, but I needed to know his feelings. I was not going to second guess him, he had to tell me. We could not continue to live at B pretending the summer was eternal. Eternal summers would be fine, but an eternal summer was not possible; that summer had long past. 

I could give up Rome and Italy for him if he asked me to do so. He has never broached the subject of the end of his sabbatical. I suppose both of us are ignoring the moment he has to go back to his university and we will have to have a long distance relationship again. I cannot bear the thought of not having him next to me; I really think it would kill me. 

As I enter my flat, I looked at it as though it was the last time. I loved it, there were so many good memories, it was the first place I could call my own, but now I had to think about us not just myself; I was willing to make sacrifices.   
As I called him for the evening chat I wondered how to bring up the conversation about our future.  
“Oliver I missed you! How was your day?” His voice was warm as always.

“Elio, I did all the research you needed in the library, sort of, I actually just photocopied everything. There is a problem, I think that I need to be in Rome for a couple of weeks at the end of the month and will not be able to go up to B, there is a lot I need to do at the faculty.”  
There was silence on the other side. I felt as though I was forcing his hand, but it was true that work was starting to pile up.

“Are you coming up on Thursday?” Neutral tone of voice.  
“Yes, I would not miss any chance I have to be by your side.”  
“Good, so you can help me to pack for Rome, I have no idea what the weather is like in November…”

I was silent. I really did not know what to say, but I never could say much if I was not looking at him, reading his expressions; the phone was a false friend where Oliver and I were concerned.

“I think you need to buy some winter clothes, you seem to have just packed for the summer. I will take you shopping and look for things that fit such a tall man… such a beautiful tall man.”  
“Yes, some shopping and eating, no drinking, especially no Martinis.” He laughed.  
My Oliver was coming to Rome, and from there we would face another obstacle side by side.


	8. Our City

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver arrives in Rome

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the comments, they are lovely and encourage me to write. I was going to post this chapter tomorrow, but I found myself writing such a difficult part today that I need time to extricate myself from the mess Oliver and Elio have put me and themselves in; it has expanded into three chapters and I am spent. So I will be working on it for the next couple of days.

As the coast ran past me I was wondering why I was feeling a sense of sickness sitting in a train bound for Rome. Work was mounting for Elio, end of term exams, theses to check and discuss and department meetings; he could not go back and forwards like the last month. He was also very tired, and I knew it was time to join him in Rome if I wanted to be near him.   
He tried to ask me why I was reluctant to be in the city, but I could not answer; not honestly at least. I even avoided returning with him in the car as to have a few extra days at the villa.

As the train turns I see the Golfo dei Poeti; where Shelly died and was cremated; where his heart was collected, cor cordium. I was following his heart to where it was buried, and I was afraid.

The villa feels like home, it was where I was re-born; the place that holds the dearest memories of my life, except for the birth of the boys. I never feel excluded there; I feel I can live that summer as an eternal loop. But Rome is where I was shown the life I could have had but refused it. It is the place I said good bye, where the last kiss was given.   
It is also where Elio became the man he is, without me. His loves present and past that have nothing to do with me, his ghosts that I cannot see but I know are there. It is a petty thought, and this is why I cannot tell him about my reluctance. I need to be better than this.

Termini station is chaotic, I know that Elio is still at the university, and I decide to go there, avoiding his flat for a little longer and wanting to see him at work.  
His office is at the end of a corridor, and as I enter I fill it. “Oliver!” he greets me with a kiss ignoring the presence of his assistant who just smiles. 

“Betta, ti presento Oliver, Oliver meet Betta, or Dottoressa Elisabetta Romini, she is brilliant, will nick my job in a few years!” 

They both laugh, and I like his easy manner with her. I love his openness with me at work.   
Betta is blond with a round serious face and wears thick glasses; as we shake hands she examines me closely, but I must have passed her test, as she smiles and says “Pleased to meet you Oliver, I have heard a lot about you!” Elio looks away and blushes.

He rapidly finishes an email, turns off his computer and picks up a pile of papers and just stuffs them into his briefcase; he grabs me by the hand and as he is out of the door smiles his good bye to Betta before she can remind him of any other thing he needs to do.  
“Off, off, off!” he mutters as we make our way through the university gardens towards the traffic outside.

“Do you want to get a cab? You have your large bag with you. It is not a long walk home, and we do get to pass in front of Santa Maria Maggiore…”  
“Walk, I want to see the road you take every day and the things you notice.”

We pass the homeless and expensive hotels, churches and mini markets, wide roads and small streets. Elio points out to me some of the places he loves, a pub, a church with the most beautiful IX century mosaics, a restaurant and a fountain in a square. He hands me his Rome hidden from the tourists, willing me to accept it. 

As we enter his little flat I realise at last that it is pure Elio, full of books and paintings, postcards of places he has been messily placed onto walls and shelves, many coloured cushions and throws. The only ghosts are in my mind and not in the house.

“Oliver, I was thinking, since I have sold my parent’s flat in Milan I have more than enough to buy a new place here in Rome. Shall we go flat hunting next week? I want a place with a large study for both of us and at least a spare bedroom for your sons. I want a place that is a home from home for you and me. I am also thinking of a career move to the states, but that will take a bit longer, but if you prefer, we could buy a place over there.”

“Elio, you do not need to. I am willing to be here in this flat and in this city. I am sorry if I was being irrational, but now it is ok. Please do not move away from where you are comfortable.”  
He kisses me lightly and his smile is so loving I feel like a child in front of his mother.

“Oliver, I want to build a new home with you, where you never feel like a guest. A place for you to throw your keys down as you enter and flop onto the sofa grumbling about the traffic. Where we can argue about whose turn it is to fill the dishwasher or take the rubbish out to the bins. A place where we have chosen the furniture and the wall paint together after long discussions.”

I feel like crying, I really do not deserve so much love. “Yes, we will start looking for the perfect place; do remember that for me the perfect place is anywhere you are, even under a bridge.”  
He frowns slightly “I am too spoilt to live under a bridge Oliver, even if your presence is tempting…”

After dinner we look at some places for sale, argue if a second bathroom is really necessary and organise some appointments to view a couple we think could be suitable.   
As he is reading and correcting theses, I email the boys and look at vacancies at international universities in Italy. I can imagine all my colleagues back home telling me it is a career suicide, but I really do not care.   
I need to be close to Elio, and I cannot bear to be back at my university so far away from him. When I am back for Christmas, with Elio by my side, I will resign from work. I shall not mess up this part of my life.   
I know he will be against it, thinking I am giving up too much, but I need to do it for myself and I do not want him to move to the states; I also want to be able to be at the villa any given free time without having to book plane flights. 

“Oliver, have you ever been to the Pyramid to see Keats and Shelly’s tombs? We can go tomorrow; it should be a nice day.” He has put down his papers and smiles at me.  
“I have been, but not with you. I am happy to pay my respects to the original cor cordium in the company of my own cor cordium.”

He throws a cushion at me and as I get up from the armchair to smother him I know that Rome is our city like B and the villa are our sanctuary. But only Elio is my home.


	9. The scar upon my Temple

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Un unpleasant scene in the street brings back memories for Elio  
> Warning for homophobic language and violence.  
> Thank you for all your lovely comments and kudos!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It upsets me writing the insults that do not need translating; there are so many ways to insult in any language or dialect. Elio answers with Neapolitan and French insults, I thought that he heard them as a child uttered by Manfredi and his parents, and the first naughty words we learn are the ones that give us more satisfaction as adults.

It had been a splendid day, we went to see the Munch exhibition and then to dinner at a small trattoria. The air was chilly and we had warmed ourselves with a bottle of wine. I suppose it was the wine that let our guard down.  
As we were walking side by side our hands touched, and without thinking I took Elio’s hand and kissed it. 

Walking towards us there were two men. “Guarda sti due froci!” “A recchioni mo ve bruciamo” they shouted towards us. I knew that they were insulting us, but luckily I did not understand what they were saying. Elio tensed, I instinctively held his arm, I was sure he was going to spring towards them. 

“A fii d’androcchia, t’as pas de couilles” he shouted.  
I moved him away. I was shocked, but almost relieved, a lifetime of fear had at last manifested itself, and it was not as terrible as I imagined. But of course, it was not in my hometown in front of family or friends.  
But it was in front of Elio, who even back in the flat was still trembling with anger. It was anger, not shame or fear. He was white hot, I had never seen him like this, I was afraid of him.  
“Elio, it’s ok, nothing’s happened we are home.” He hissed, I thought he would start spitting poison.

“I could kill them, I want to kill them. You know why they did not really approach us Oliver? You know why? They are pathetic cowards and you are six foot five, that’s why. Otherwise they would have tried to beat us up.”

He turned to the window and looked down to the street and the few people walking down it.  
“I refuse to be ashamed of what I am, who I love and how I live my life.” He spoke quietly, but with conviction.  
“I know you do, and I admire you for it. I wish I was as strong as you are.”  
He closed the shutters and turned towards me “It was you who kissed my hand. It made me happy, so happy. I suppose I am angry that such a precious moment has been defiled; such a sweet gesture could be crudely crushed.”

I felt guilty that I could have let myself go and cause this. He knew what I was thinking; his gaze was distant as though it was looking at something happening in a different lifetime. 

He walked towards me and stopped just in front of me, without saying anything he took off his sweater and threw it to the ground. I was sure there was nothing sexual in his action. He slowly unbuttoned his shirt and opened it; he freed his left shoulder and guided my hand to it.  
“I am sure you noticed this scar” I had, it was a small star shaped scar whiter than his pale skin, puckered and placed in the soft tissue between arm and chest; I had kissed it many times.

“I was returning from a night out with Tiziano; we were both in the first flush of passion and love, I was twenty-five and working on my doctorate, he was twenty-three and was going to graduate in the fall. We had a summer and a life in front of us.” His voice was without any emotion, flat as though he was recounting a story read in some book that was not particularly interesting.  
I was afraid, and even hearing him talking about being in love with someone else did not upset me; I knew it was worse than that.

“We left a club known to be gay friendly at two in the morning. I was sober and walking towards my parked car, holding Tiziano’s hand. God we were happy in that moment, even your ghost Oliver had been relegated into an attic. I stopped in the middle of the dark car park and kissed him and then saw them, there were three men waiting for someone to leave the club.”

He looked at me as to say sorry about forgetting me in that moment in time; I did not mind, I really did not, I was just afraid of what he was going to tell me.

“They walked towards us spewing insults; I was shocked, and I reacted, how dare they soil the perfect evening? Tiziano tried to hold me back, but he is much slighter than you are Oliver, I easily broke free.”  
He smiled and ran his hand along my arm; I kissed the top of his head.

“I went up to them and asked how dare they and they laughed in my face. One of them had grabbed Tiziano, and pulling his head back by his hair joked that he was pretty as a girl and it would be ok to fuck him. I lost it. I grabbed the man and punched him. The others jumped on me.”  
I felt nauseous at the thought of Elio in a fight alone. I held him tight. His voice continued muffled against my chest.

“I was, I am, a berserker when I lose it, so I gave as good as I got, but one of them thinking that three against one was not cowardly enough, or he was angry that I dared to react, pulled out a screwdriver and stabbed me.”  
I drew my breath through my teeth; I felt such anger for those unknown men, I wanted to find them and kill them. 

“I did not realise at first, I thought it was a punch till Tiziano screamed and the men run off. There was a lot of blood; he could have easily stabbed me in the heart, it was close. When the ambulance came Tiziano was in hysterics, for me, for what had happened and his fear that it would end in the news and his parents would found out about him.”

He sighed and was silent for a few minutes.  
“For that reason I did not report it to the police, and I still feel guilty about it. But Oliver, look at this scar, I think of it as my Purple Heart, no shame but proud to have survived. Seventy odd years ago these people would have wanted us dead for our religion, and neither of us had choice in which family we were born into. Now they hate us for whom we love and again, we should not have to choose who we love. I refuse to justify my existence to such people.”

I slowly fell to my knees in front of him and clasped his waist and looked up at him; he leaned down and his open shirt fell either side of my head as a curtain shielding me from the outside. I kissed his scar as the faithful kiss an icon; I ran my fingers over the star shaped scar like Saint Thomas seeking confirmation of the pain of Christ.  
He is my temple, comely as Jerusalem and terrible as an army with banners. The scar upon my temple is a scar on my heart.  
“We cannot choose who we love, and I was created to love you Elio; it is my fate and I gladly embrace it.”


	10. The Birthday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elio is not happy with his approaching birthday…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whiney Elio and his fears, I could write a million words about them; but as we will see in the next chapter, there is a reason behind this.

I knew why I was in a bad mood and arriving at the villa in December did not lift my spirit at all.  
I suppose I was being petty, but I was not looking forward to my birthday that was in a few days’ time. Yes, it was good not having to go to work and having Oliver next to me, but being forty was something I could not look forward to. I could not complain about it to Oliver, his next birthday brought him closer to fifty, and I did not know what he felt about that.   
Ten years ago I had recently lost my father, left Tiziano and mother was starting to get confused, there was nothing to celebrate for my thirtieth, but my unhappiness was also about reaching that milestone. I knew that I hated getting older and losing my boyish charm, the male gaze fading. 

“You are being silly Elio, you just need the gaze of one man” I told myself; but what if he did not find me attractive any longer? He was still as beautiful as a god, yes his fine features were blurring a little, but he was still tall and fit. I was still thin and weedy; a twink, a middle aged twink. The thought disgusted me, and I would not blame Oliver if he indeed went and found someone younger. 

I could tell he was perplexed by the silent me that would stop in mid conversation and loose himself in a dark world of fears. Even lighting the last candle of Hanukkah together, an intimate ritual, did not appease my fears.

The days passed quietly, I played the piano and read my student’s thesis, and Oliver was working on father’s papers. We had the evenings to ourselves, Oliver loved cooking, I remembered his love for food and lately he started to take over the kitchen, leaving Mafalda to prepare breakfast and lunch, but every evening he surpassed himself. 

“Are you trying to fatten me up?” I asked every time and his answer always was “You need energy if you want to keep up your nigh time assaults Elio.”  
“I am sorry if I am harassing you, I shall stop and leave you alone…”   
“How alone? All of me alone? I might have to start assaulting you then.”  
I snorted “As though you never have…”  
“Not enough evidently!”   
He clasped me into a bear hug and started kissing my neck; just as I was going to melt into him I wondered if my jawline was as firm as it should be, that killed the mood.   
I left Oliver looking at me perplexed. He was even more surprised when I went to bed to sleep. I pondered if I wanted sex in my thirties for the last time, but the thought depressed me.

On the morning of my birthday I woke up alone in the bed, no Oliver to reach out to; his place was cold, I felt so alone. Was that my birthday present? Remembering the bitter feeling of loneliness? A life with no Oliver?   
I felt like crying, for all my fears were once more filling my soul. I was middle-aged, not the seventeen-year old; I was decaying like a peach left on the tree as winter approached. Who had ever heard of a middle-aged Ganymede filling Zeus’ cup?

In that moment Oliver walked into the bedroom holding a breakfast tray and singing “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Elio, I really love youuuu!”  
He looked so happy I felt like throwing the pillow at him.   
He saw my expression “Elio, what’s wrong? Are you ok?” The concern was so real I burst into tears.  
“I am not ok, I am forty!”  
“Welcome to the club, goose” He smiled and placing the tray on the floor knelt onto the bed.  
“If all middle-aged men were as gorgeous as you the young men of the world would be desperate.”

“So you admit I am middle-aged” I mumbled.   
“No, not yet, you will live to be a hundred, so there is some time before your mezza vita!”   
He hugged me and whispered “You are my younger love yesterday, today and tomorrow. I fear the day when you get fed up with this old man.”

I turned towards him “I could never NEVER get fed up with part of my soul, the best part of my heart. I could never leave my cor corduim, for you are better than me Oliver, so much better. I am a whiney man; I live with self-doubts and fears.”

“Shush my cor cordium, we could spend all day arguing on who is better, but you are you and I am I, and that is how we fit into each other.”   
He kissed me and I arched towards his warmth, his body; as replying to my desire he lay on top of me and ran his hands along the contours of my body under the duvet. I raised my knee between his legs and started rubbing him.   
“So this is the birthday treat you had in mind Elio?” His breathing became heavy and he rolled over pulling off his clothes and joining me in the bed.   
“Please enter me, pretty please!” I raised my legs onto his chest as he knelt over me.   
He quickly grabbed the bottle of lube and prepared me. “Hurry, I want it fast and rough!”  
As he entered me I shivered, feeling him throb inside me was a wonder that never ceased to amaze. Every time he moved outwards I felt robbed, every time he moved into me I felt complete. I looked at his expression, gazing at each other lost in the rhythm of thrusts, and I as I touched myself I imagined that his hand holding tightly onto my leg was rubbing my cock. I came, he came, we came.

“If this is the type of sex I am having during the next decade, I am not too upset about my birthday!”   
Oliver laughed “Marzia did warn me about your birthday phobia, but I thought she was exaggerating. Of course, she was right as with most things. If I had known that a session of mind blowing sex was what would cheer you up it would have saved me from ruining a good breakfast…” 

He kissed my inner thigh and cleaned me with his boxers, I rubbed my semen off my stomach with his t-shirt and sniffed it; Oliver smell mixed with my smell, bliss.  
I stood up and picked up the tray on the floor, Oliver’s boxers had finished on top of the croissants, as I sat on the edge of the bed I placed the tray on my knees and picked up a croissant and started eating it.   
“Oliver flavour croissants, that is the birthday cake I like”  
“My dear dissoluto assoluto, happy birthday” he nibbled my earlobe and took a bite from the croissant I was eating.


	11. Chronos and the Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The reasons for Elio's unhappines on his birthday.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am in the middle of a slump, what I want to write is in my mind but on the page it is another thing...  
> Thanks to those who comment, you give me the inspiration!

Elio’s expressions when Mafalda brought out the cake after lunch were a collage of many childhood delights over-imposed. 

“Mafalda grazie! La pastiera, Oliver I love this cake, it is the best in the world, and Mafalda makes the best pastiera. Here try it” He passed me a large slice.   
Looking at him talking to Mafalda and eating the cake, I wondered where the unhappy sullen Elio of the last few days had gone.   
I remember that summer Elio’s moods would change rapidly, as clouds streaking across the sky on clear days; probably I thought he was too mobile to be constant and that tricked me in my decision to lead an expected life.

But I now know that Elio’s heart is the pole of the weathervane, always upright and steadfast as all turns around him. I wonder if he has started to show me his moods because he trusts me and needs no longer to be on his best behaviour? It can be tiring being dragged along, but I was brought up to be good, always good, and look where that took me.  
Elio looked at me with a pleading expression, I wonder if he was feeling guilty of his earlier behaviour. 

After lunch we sat on the sofa, I rested my head on his shoulder and placed the gift I had hid behind the cushions on his lap. “Happy birthday again stroppy love.”  
He eagerly ripped the paper and held up the book; Fadensonnen by Celan. “It is a first edition; you keep complaining that you are forgetting your German…”

He kissed me “Thank you Oliver for always thinking of me and putting up with me, I know that I am a nightmare.”  
“A dream you mean” I kissed him back.  
“No Oliver, a real nightmare. I live with fears, I collect them. I watch all the worse scenarios play out in my mind on a relentless loop. I fear getting old and you not finding me desirable any longer.”

I tried to say something, but he raised his hand and placed it lightly over my mouth.  
“I need to explain why, I know you are not like that; if our story ends there will be other reasons, but the fear has solid foundations. It is not easy being an adult single gay looking for a relationship. The chance of meeting someone at work or socially is negligible and generally clubs is not where you go to forge meaningful relationships.”  
He clutched my hand but did not look at me.

“I have been very dissoluto assoluto, companionship for an hour or a night. If I was lucky, it could be a week or a month. There have been very few steady relationships, Ben at Harvard, Tiziano and Richard, the rest were what I could get. It was probably my fault, afraid of showing my vulnerable side and closing myself to others”  
He ran his hand through his hair; he looked so weary that I wanted to claim his weight as my own.

“I have been attractive, a lot of men find the twink irresistible, and I played with it. Do not get me wrong, I have enjoyed myself, I liked being desired, but really there was only one person I needed to find me desirable; all the others were a distraction.”  
Elio, my only love, it hurts me to listen to you, thinking of your past, I cannot take away the pain, but I can reassure you about the future.

“After I left Tiziano and hitting thirty I was sure I could not even find a night’s comfort. I grew my beard trying to look adult and kill the boyishness that was starting to worry me. I was still considered attractive, but I felt a cheat; that I was sinking into loneliness and would never find the comfort of a warm body holding me. I had visions of my old age alone in the villa sitting at the piano and unable to play because there was no joy left in me. Every birthday brought that day nearer.”

“Elio, we will be here in our old age, you will play the piano and I will listen to you. We will wake up every morning side by side, and even if you will snore I will not mind, since I will be deaf.”  
“I do not snore!” He looked indignant, but at least it had shaken him out of his melancholy.  
“You do! When you lie on your back with your lips parted you snore! I must admit, a beautiful snorer, I am always tempted to kiss you, so being woken is not a chore.”  
I laughed and he punched me on the shoulder. I started tickling him until he panted “I surrender!” and then kissed him.

How much pain he felt during the years, as I was slowly dissecting my expected life and being swallowed by despair, he was also battling a war against his fears, and losing it.  
I stoked his hair, slowly twisting my fingers into his curls, I muttered “Oliver, Oliver, Oliver!” into his ear and as he whispered “Elio, Elio, Elio” into my shoulder.

“Elio, you are my lover, my friend, my son and my father. Only one way to describe how I love you is not enough. Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves’ eyes”  
“As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste” he replied.   
I could not resist “Sorry Elio, I am sure the Bible said it was a peach tree, or at least in our Song of Songs the fruit sweet to the taste is a peach.”  
He sighed. “I will never be allowed to forget it, will I?” 

He got up and sat at the piano. The rest of the afternoon he played divinely and I just sat and listened to him and watched his expressions. Each piece played was the story of us, the rush of youth, the passion and then the desolation of the years alone. The meeting and the aloofness, the regrets and nostalgia that was a sickness of the soul. The tentative conversations, the first kiss after twenty years and the daily joy of companionship and passion re-ignited like an ember allowed to freely flare. 

All the different pieces merged into one symphony of us, it seemed that the afternoon stretched into twenty years; at the door was my young ghost looking on, his hard gaze was masking desire. Sitting next to Elio was his ghost, young and as a doe ready to flee from the emotions he could not understand; our older selves still were overwhelmed by them; how all this feeling could still be strong after the coma, after we had been through so much, after we had changed I do not know. Sometimes it frightens me.

Elio slumps onto the keyboard, spent; I walk over and slowly caress his back “Thank you, there could be no better love declaration, but it is your day, not mine.”  
He slowly gets up and hugs me “I hope that every day is our day.”

Holding onto each other we climb the stairs and retire to our room; just to lie on the bed and embrace as the plaster casts of Pompeii lovers, so that time cannot part us.  
Until Elio started playing with my nipples, or was it until I started kissing him; probably when we gazed at each other and felt the same desire that never left us.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was trying to think of the music Elio played, bearing in mind that he loves to transcribe I thought the following:  
> Bach Capriccio on the departure of a beloved brother (BWV 992) of course  
> Vivaldi, Four Seasons Summer   
> Beethoven Moonlight Sonata (lost years)  
> Chopen Nocturno n.8 op 27-20 (meeting again)  
> Stravinsky Rites of Spring, it is rare having only one piano play it, but you can find Atamian playing it, and it is magnificent. I am sure Elio worked hard on transcribing it.  
> Bach Capriccio again… to finish where it started.  
> My musical tastes are not really the piano, opera and orchestra is my cup of tea, thank goodness Elio transcribes.  
> Hopefully I will see the film in the cinema next week...


	12. The Dam Breaks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The past and its feelings catch up on Elio and Oliver and it is not pretty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The past is not another country, Oliver keeps reassuring himself that Elio’s past affairs do not matter, Elio keeps telling himself that he has no resentment against Oliver. The gentlemen doth protest too much.

It had been a good New Year, a New Year in New England with the boys and Elio. I did miss my country, the language of my childhood, the brick buildings and my campus.   
I had rented a house for the two weeks and I did indulge in imagining that Elio and I lived there all the year round; but I knew that he felt a fish out of water in the states and I was unable to live freely here.   
I could not see myself introducing him as my partner at social events; it made me ashamed, but living in Italy was the only solution for the coward I am.

I resigned from my post. It was my crossing of the Rubicon, I just hoped my fate would be sweeter than Caesar’s, I know it is a career suicide, but I wanted more from life than what work could offer; I loved teaching and research not office politics, all I had done till now was to prove to my parents that you could be successful studying Classics and Philosophy. 

As I walked into my office with Elio I remembered the good times, colleagues and students that kept me afloat when I felt was drowning.   
The postcard of the berm was now back where it belonged, above our bed in the villa, but I needed to take back all the books that were still there. Elio was silent, as though he knew I was saying goodbye; I handed him some books to take back immediately, the rest I would have shipped. 

“We can go now, all is fine, it is now time for us!” I kissed him, feeling daring.  
As we walked down the corridor I saw the last person I hoped to bump into. 

“Hello Oliver, I hear you are leaving. What a pity.” His tone was the exact contrary of his words.   
I was sure that my smile was a snarl “Yes I just handed my resignation letter; I am off to new adventures Benjamin.”   
I did not notice that Elio had almost hid himself behind me until Benjamin exclaimed “Good God Elio! How are you? It has been years.”  
“Hi Ben, I am ok, how are you?” There was embarrassment in his tone. They chatted until Elio managed to get away.

I was in silence till we got back to the house. As soon as we took of our coats I turned towards Elio.  
“So you know Benjamin Johnston, how?” My tone was sharp, but I could not help it, I disliked the man so much.  
Elio looked at me with a surprised expression “We were at university together and…”  
He was not sure if it was a good idea to continue.  
“And?” But I knew the answer and it was killing me.  
“Ben and I went out for a bit; you could say he was my first official boyfriend”   
There was a hint of defiance that I did not heed. Of course two weeks hiding did not make me a boyfriend; the pain I felt was that of being raked over hot coals. 

The thought of being in faculty meetings and having to listen to Benjamin drone on about useless bureaucracy and not knowing that he had caressed the boy, kissed the same lips, made love to him; all this in the open, he could have openly talked about Elio while I hid him as the son of professor Perlman. I was going to vomit.  
I sat down on the couch and looked at my feet and I felt the room loom over me.

“Oliver?” Elio was worried, but I did not care. Rage, jealousy and self-loathing washed over me, wave after wave.  
“God Elio, you could have chosen someone better than that asshole to fuck!” As soon as I said it I regretted it.  
He stepped back as though I had slapped him.

“He is not that bad Oliver; he is a shy person and hides it with cockiness, a bit like you used to do.”  
Compering us was not a wise move; it stoked my rage.  
“Do not compare me to that arrogant twat. He was probably using you to get closer to your father. Did you fuck him at the berm?”

For years I had that postcard in the office; I wonder if he ever noticed it and laughed at me. I wonder if Elio told him about me and he had spent years smirking knowing we had both slept with Elio; but he was open about his preferences, while I was supposedly “happily married”.  
“I suppose when you came to see me that time he was the ‘people’ we had to meet the next day.”

Elio just stood looking at me while I ranted, but his eyes suddenly narrowed.  
“I never took him to the villa, if it is any of your business, we broke up before the summer. Yes, I did meet up with him for a coffee that time, but not for a fuck, HE is in a happy relationship if you cared to know.”   
Bitterness in that last phrase; he squared his shoulders and I knew I was going to be at the bottom of a valley when the dam was opened.  
“But all this is rhetorical Oliver, because there is one true fact, when I was sleeping with Ben you were married and the father of a child. I really do not know why you question who, when, why and where I fucked. At the time you did not care who I was having sex with, did you? I might have been an occasional thought for you; you were a constant obsession for me!” He was shouting; as my anger abated his rose.

“I am sorry Elio, I am sorry. I took it out on you, please forgive me!” I was babbling.  
“For what do I have to forgive you for? For what you think of me? For your fear of being outed in front of your colleagues? For not asking your approval on whom I fucked over twenty years ago?”  
He seemed to grow in size as I shrunk.

“I am sorry Oliver, but I will not put up with this. It was my life and you know how unhappy I was from the day you decided to leave me. You went off to get married; I was left alone cradling the memories. I told you about the void I tried to fill and I thought you understood. And now you dare accuse me…”  
He stopped as though he was afraid of what he was going to say.   
“I need to get out; I cannot stay here with you!”

He walked out of the room and I heard the front door slam; as ran after him I cried out “Wait Elio, don’t go, don’t leave me! Elio!”  
I was left in silence; a silence that broke when I started sobbing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was emotionally draining to write; it wrote itself, as though Oliver and Elio dictated me. I want them to be happy, and after a year they have their first big fight; at last they are not on their best behaviour.   
> For Oliver knowing a past boyfriend of Elio is too much; Elio at last reminds Oliver of the hurt he went through.  
> One chapter has expanded into three...


	13. Seeking Formulas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elio wonders what to do and has a conversation.

After walking for some time without any direction, I sat in a cafe looking at a sickly sweet large coffee for what felt like hours. I could not move back or forward; I was drained, I was sick of the past and there seemed to be little future.

But there was also a feeling of relief having said what I did; a weight had lifted. The pain remained, but I had learnt to live with it; I did not realise it was so easy to bring it to the surface and unleash it in anger and grief; as though I had ripped out my heart and thrown it at him.  
I wondered how Oliver was, I was sorry but I could not stay near him, I needed to be alone in this strange city and find the Elio I was; not the Elio I wanted to be or the Elio Oliver thought I was. What Elio did Oliver want? One without the years pressing down on him, if that was the case, it was impossible.

I left the café and I walked through blank streets facing the cold, hands in my pockets as a surly teen-ager angry with the world till I stopped and sat on a park bench looking at the river and hearing the water rush by. The cold kept me alert.   
I thought about tomorrow and the days after. He could go back to his job, he had time to recant his resignation; if not he had time to look for another post.   
I would be in Rome; the ghosts were not many since he did avoid being there with me at first, small mercies. I really needed to sell the villa, it was a burden now; but what about mother and father resting there? I could not forsake them. Rent out the villa? Gift it to Oliver? He seemed to be obsessed with it. 

“Father…” I muttered I needed him so much in this moment, what would he say to me?   
“The usual rubbish about not ripping from ourselves to feel nothing” I thought angrily; I wanted to fell nothing, I was spent; even tears had worn out.  
The guilt of such angry thoughts shamed me, but of course, father was a better person than I was, but that was not difficult. I tried to light a cigarette, but I had to take off my gloves; the contrast between the cold on my fingers and the ember of the cigarette distracted me.

“There you are!” The voice was pleasant, calm and known.  
“I see he has sent out the search parties.” I did not hide the bitterness.  
“He has called every single hospital in a radius of hundred miles; he cannot report you as missing until 24 hours, five hours are not enough. He would stalk the airport, but you left your passport in the house.” Julian sat next to me on the bench.  
“I have no intention of throwing myself into the river you know.”  
“I know, dad’s the problem. Better let him know you are ok.” He pulled out his phone.  
“Do not let him know where I am, I do not want to see him yet.” If I ever want to see him I thought.  
“I will just text him to say you are alive and well. As well as he is, and that is not saying much though. When you switch on your phone there will be a million texts and your answerphone is now full.”

I leaned back and looked up to the sky, but there were no stars; covered by unseen clouds.   
“I am sorry to have you dragged into this, it is not fair. It is the last evening before you go back to college; you should be going out for a good dinner with your father, not sitting on a cold bench in the middle of nowhere.” I lit another cigarette, another of many.

“Can I?” He reached towards the packet and without waiting for an answer took one.   
“I thought you were an athlete, you should not smoke” I said as I passed him the lighter.  
“I thought I was many things. I broke up with Steve just before Thanksgiving; does it get better? The ache I mean.”

Julian, you are asking the wrong person, you really are. Shall I be honest or lie to this kind young man next to me; the son of my… my what?  
“Depends. Sometimes it feels like you have been lifted of a weight and you feel guilty and then the guilt disappears after time; sometimes the ache lives on thought your life; you might have a couple of years when you do not feel it, but then it gives a small twinge to remind you that it is there, ready to flare up at the first opportunity.”

“So only time will tell. I have to wait and see; I wonder if the Algarotti equation works, force of love decreases with distance of separation Love ∞1/d2”  
Well that did not work for me, but there are always exceptions “Tell me if it works, I need a formula to make sense of it all; age will not bring wisdom if you are not wise to start. And like some sort of lotus eater I prefer to stay where I am, never moving forward.”

We both sat quietly thinking and finishing the cigarette, collecting thoughts and memories.  
“I always believed in Goethe’s elective affinities” I thought aloud; I remembered reading the book as I was on the cusp of my teenage years and dreaming of finding such affinity; I wonder if I had determined my fate then.  
“The delicate chemical affinity through which we attract and repel each other, reunite, neutralize, separate and recover.” Or never recover in some cases.

“I like physics to explain the universe, I need to brush up on chemistry, but will let you know if I discover something. A Nobel for the final formula of love that would be a goal in life. It is a much bigger mystery than the Big Bang.”   
He smiled in the knowledge he had a life in front of him, a life to explore and love, win, lose and start again. The advantage of youth.

Julian’s presence comforted me in some way, I really could not howl in front of Oliver’s son. Grow up indeed, but if I was to grow up what did the grown up Elio want or needed; because I was aware of the difference between wanting and needing.

“Are you going back to the house? I have put my phone to silent, but there seem to be a non-stop sequence of texts from dad.”  
“Yes, I am going back, I need my things and passport at least.”  
“I do not know what happened between the two of you, and I really do not want to know, but I hope it can be resolved Elio, I really do. Dad is not good with words and sometimes he messes up; the time I came out is a good example. He hurts others by not being capable to express his feelings, but the pain he causes himself is equal, if not more, and that makes forgiving him a bit easier. It took me time to realise this though.”   
He looked at me earnestly; Oliver and Sarah had done a good job with their sons, encouraging them to be open and honest.   
I rubbed his arm as to reassure him. “We will see.”  
I could not give any other reply; I needed to see Oliver before I could move back or forward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the comments!  
> I am always afraid that Alex and Julian are just too perfect, but I like them and I feel that I need some sane people in this fiction.   
> This chapter is a chance for Elio to think about love, youth and expectations.   
> I want them to be happy...


	14. Time is Conquered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One heart is not connected to another through harmony alone. They are, instead, linked deeply through their wounds. Pain linked to pain, fragility to fragility. There is no silence without a cry of grief, no forgiveness without bloodshed, no acceptance without a passage through acute loss. That is what lies at the root of true harmony.  
> Haruki Murakami, Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage.

The house was dark as I entered; Oliver was sitting on the couch in the living room, the only light was coming from the phone he was clutching. He did not hear me, as though he was lost to reality.  
I switched on the light and as he turned towards me his expressions morphed from despair to hope and settled at fear. Fear of me, of what I was going to say.

“Elio, I was so worried, where were you? Are you ok? Please forgive me; I do not know what went through me!” He got up and I put up a hand to stop him before he reached me.  
“I needed to be alone for a while. I needed to think and decide.”

“Did you decide?” There was fear.  
“Depends, depends what you want from me Oliver. Do you want the man that is here in front of you, the man with fears and scars, older but not wiser; an Elio that has been longing for you for over twenty years but has a past. Or do you want an eternal teenage Elio, who is physically older but still the boy he was? If it the second choice, I cannot give you that Elio. He ceased to exist long ago”

Oliver looked mortified, I think he realised that I was right.  
“I want the Elio in front of me, hoping he is good enough to accept the flawed Oliver in front of him.”

“Do you want a second chance at happiness Oliver, or are you trying to re-create what could have been? The road forked long ago and the missed path is now obliterated. We cannot go back even if we wanted to, and I do not want to. I fear you do, and I cannot walk with you backwards.”  
I felt my voice starting to break.

We stood looking at each other, and it was as though we were looking at each other for the first time ever, there were no veils of the past blurring the reality in front of us, there were no masks. I saw an incredibly handsome man that made my heart beat faster, a hurt man that was still unsure if to let go of what he thought life was meant to be. I saw a piece of my soul that I had lived without for so long I was wondering if it ever was mine. I wondered what he saw.

He suddenly moved towards me before I could react and hugged me, tightly, fearing I would metamorphose into a bird or a tree as a Nymph to evade him. “I am bad at words that matter; I can only hold you tight and hope you can feel my heart beat and my trembling. I thought I had lost you, and nothing mattered in my life when I thought I would never see you again.”

I stood still, arms against my side, I had no reply. I had been thinking of organising my life without him, but I had done so before and it was not a life but an existence. 

“These hours not knowing where you were and thinking they would stretch into the rest of my life were unbearable, and for the first time I tasted what it was like for you. God Elio, you are so strong to have survived such pain.”  
He rested his head against mine; I hugged him back and I could feel his body slightly relax. 

“Not very well Oliver, I did not survive the pain very well. I took it with me and stoked it as thought it was the thing that made me feel alive; there would be periods when I did not think of you, my perfect lover that was frozen in time and a place. But when things in real life went wrong I would pluck you from the closet and bemoan the cruel fate that had deprived me of my ideal life. It was not a healthy thing to do; and I cannot help but wonder if we both chose the same path together then, would we be still here?”

“Yes, I am sure we would be still here, like this after a fight.”  
He was whispering into my ear, like a prayer, with the conviction of the faithful.  
“We would have different scars and fears, we would have argued about something else, but we would be still standing clutching each other. I never argued with Sarah like this, my feelings never boiled over; never felt the jealousy or pain that opened the dam of my feelings. I have been on my best behaviour with you for this year because I thought that was the way I had to behave, to be good, but I am not good Elio, the way I love you is light and darkness, pleasure and guilt.”

I buried my face into his neck, smelling the scent of Oliver, knowing that the chemical reactions in me were working once more; the elective affinity that never repelled me.  
“And we would be still standing clutching each other in the storm of life, in another country, in another time. This is what we are doing in each of the parallel universes where there is an Oliver and Elio. And in each one you are better than I am Oliver, because I speak spurned by my feelings of the moment, you think of consequences. You have given up so much in this year while I am living my usual life with your presence as the bonus, it is not fair.”  
I felt my tears fall down my cheeks, large and slow, I was being honest at last about how spoilt I am, how unbelievably lucky I have been while I was unhappy.

Oliver cupped my face in his hands and tilting my head looked at me.  
“You have always been better than I am; brave fighting battles alone while I was petrified of consequences. I have not given up anything that is important, my sons have flown their nest, they are both in college and know that I am there when needed; the aspect that I love in my work I can continue wherever, the rest is trouble and strife. My country is just where I was born but my identity is something I can take with me wherever you are Elio, wherever you are.”

I kissed his lips, I just loved him, there was nothing else that I could think; I needed and wanted him.  
Hand in hand we went to the bedroom and lay on the bed still dressed and held on to each other and talked all night; even our toes still in their socks were entwined.  
The passion could wait, there was never any doubt about passion, and sometimes it papered over problems that we should have discussed. That night we needed to confess our fears and laugh at them; each horrible thought that crossed our minds had to be brought to light and as such diminished. 

I told him about each time I fantasied about him being abandoned and alone, just waiting for me to find him; of the times I wished him dead so unbearable the thought of him being somewhere without me; how I wanted to cripple him as to dominate him and keep him in Italy. 

He told me how much he hated me being with Marzia that summer and how he determined I was fickle, just a boy; the sick pleasure he felt when he answered “so” after I confessed I still felt something all those years later; how he was tormented by jealousy of my past affairs and how he wanted to hurt me someway about it; how sometimes when he was with Sarah he fantasised it was me he was making love to; how that Christmas seeing my anger and pain when he told me about the engagement gave him the thrill that I did actually care.

We looked at each other’s heart of darkness and plucked out each black creature within it and named it, as to take away its power to hurt; we let in the light and as dawn broke, we fell asleep still embraced.

Be remembered; involved with past and future. Only through time time is conquered.  
T S Eliot, Burnt Norton

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The worse is past, I have a couple of chapters of fluff and a sprinkle of angst. Then... we shall see.  
> Thank you all for your comments! I posted this a bit early to end the misery.  
> Writing this inspired my bleak and terrible short story, A Little More Time, I do like exploring the darkness in hearts.


	15. Titus Ascending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elio meets a new friend...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the lovely comments!   
> After the heavy chapters here is a bit of light escapism…

Being back in Rome alone after a week-end in Florence with Oliver felt like passing from Elysium to Hades within a train ride.   
We had both been to Florence before, but it was the first time I saw it with his eyes and he with mine; I was collecting the new first times I had with him. We each noticed the same things on our own and it was a delight to discover this, the smile of Leonardo’s Angel, the background of Paolo Uccello’s Battle of San Romano, the hand veins of Michelangelo’s David.   
When I saw David during the last year of school, it reminded me so much of Oliver; the pain and longing drove me mad, and as my nose bled I almost fainted. Stendhal syndrome I heard muttering around me; no it was Oliver syndrome.

But now I am back in Rome while Oliver stays a few days to research in the Uffizi library; I need to be at work.   
Walking back to the flat I hear a faint lament, as a baby crying, but from under a parked car. I was going to ignore it but I felt that this time I could not pass by; I was learning to look after others and not just save myself from pain.   
I gently kneeled and looked under the car; there was a small, dirty and frightened tabby kitten. Rome is a city of cats, they will be still there when humanity has been wiped out, ruling over ever more ruins. I got up and was walking away when the kitten mewed louder and started following me.   
I was at a loss, I never had pets, my mother was allergic and my father believed in giving freedom to all living creatures. I hurried along the street, hoping it would give up, but the kitten had other ideas and was catching up as we approached a busy road; I could not abandon it in such a place, so I picked him up and he started to purr. 

“What do I do with you felis?” I muttered, but continued towards the flat with the new acquisition. Once inside I did not know what to feed it on, if it had fleas (I am sure it did) and if there were any vets nearby open in late afternoon. Marzia was the only one that could help; Elena and Teresa had filled the house with pets, I remember the desperation of Marzia when Elena insisted she wanted an iguana for her birthday; it took a lot of work to change her mind. 

I called Marzia without worrying about the time.  
“Marzia, help!”   
“Elio, what has happened?” Her tone of voice was worried, as though I was going to give terrible news.  
“I am alone in the flat with a kitten and I do not know what to do!”  
“Elio, I have no wish to know the erotic games you and Oliver get up to. Google the answers if you are so desperate.”  
“No, it is a real kitten I have just found, what do they eat that will not harm them?” I must admit, the idea of Oliver acting as a kitten did stir my loins.  
“You never! What has happened to the Elio I knew? I want him back!”  
I laughed, I wonder where that Elio had gone as well, probably the present Elio was the original Elio that had been stunted by fear and loneliness.   
Thanks to Marzia I fed the kitten with some tuna and prepared a box with torn newspaper as a litter box. 

I did not tell Oliver about the new arrival thinking that when he would be back I would have managed to re-home him; the vet tomorrow would advise me.   
As I was ready for bed I heard a crash from the study, and running in I found the felis on the top of the bookcase and a box on the floor with all the contents spread out.   
It was Oliver’s box, he brought it with him when he arrived last summer; an old wooden wine box, Golfo del Tigullo white, I always wondered when he bought the wine from and what he felt when drinking it; the wine we drank at the villa.   
I never opened the box, it was his treasure in there, and I thought I knew what was in it. I picked up old photos of Alex and Julian as children, smiling happily into the camera; I recognised the precise but childish handwriting on the letters, the large pile of letters Vimini had written every day that was left to her. I was tempted to read them, I always wondered what she had to say to him, but I respected their connection and refrained from looking; while putting them back I noticed a different handwriting on a few letters hidden among Vimini’s, sloppy and spiky, mine.   
I cannot remember what I wrote to him in the months before Christmas; did I ever open my heart and tell him how much I missed him? That I lacked oxygen, that my sun had eclipsed and I was blind? My music was silent since my muse was away? No, I did not, without him in front of me I cannot communicate; I need to see his expressions, as though he is my conductor. They were probably letters full of chatter, I remember writing about school and my dreams of university; a child’s dreams.   
I put them back among Vimini’s letters. At the bottom of the pile there was an extract of one of my early published papers, it had been much read and inside it there was a photo of me taken when in Oxford and used for the website of the department.   
He had printed the webpage and carefully cut the photo out. I started to cry, all the pain in the world was in that small photo, I was distraught about the death of father at the time, my hair was a bit too long, my eyes were narrowed and the line of my mouth turned down. But he had found that photo and kept it among his treasures. I wonder if he did so before or after I met him that evening in New England.

I felt a small weight jump onto my back; the kitten sat on my shoulder and was purring while nudging my face while I was keeping back the tears.

The next day at the vet I was told that such a plain kitten would not find a home easily, and the communal cattery was the best solution. He looked up at me with big yellow eyes and too many whiskers for such a small face. I had no choice.

I did not hear Oliver get back, I woke from my slumber on the couch and found him looking at me with a perplexed expression; the kitten was asleep on my chest.  
“I see we have a new flatmate, what it’s called?” he asked.

“He, he is male, and his name is Titus, he broke down my walls and conquered my Jerusalem. In less than 24 hours he carries my heart in triumph.”  
“I thought that was what I did!” Oliver seemed put out, but he did tickle Titus under the chin, who purred for him, totally captivated.   
“Oliver in your case I lowered the drawbridge, opened the gates and dragged you into the walled city. If you prefer Biblical metaphors, as Jericho my walls crumbled in front of your large trumpet!”  
He shook his head “You are the lewdest person I know…”  
“If you immediately think such things, you are just as lewd, thank goodness.”

I removed Titus and placed him on the couch and got up.  
“Stay there Titus, daddy needs to go to the bedroom and check on the wellbeing of Oliver’s trumpet…”  
Oliver embraced me tightly and started nuzzling my neck; he had missed me these few days as much as I had, and that was the best welcome back we both needed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fluff, a sprinkling of angst, a few lewd jokes and Elio and a kitten; bliss! I really should write more chapters like this one!  
> Emperor Titus conquered Jerusalem and took the Menorah in triumph in Rome; it is visible on the side of his Triumphal Arch in Rome.


	16. Passing Over

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver and Elio celebrate Passover.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your lovely comments. It helps me to rise from writing slumps!  
> Spoilers for the film Maurice. It came out in September 1987, quite a coincidence. If you have never seen it, do so. I find it interesting that James Ivory thinks Elio will find happiness after the film; as though he sees him as Maurice.   
> Maurice and Clive meet at university and have a passionate but chaste affair; Clive marries and Maurice still holds onto a friendship. During a stay at Clive’s estate he meets Alec the gamekeeper that falls for Maurice and they run away together.  
> There is a bit of meta in the chapter as well.

Spring was in the air; I cleaned the house, especially the kitchen, making sure there were no crumbs, and prepared the table. I was excited for the dinner; Elio had promised me the Italian version of Seder.   
We had a small dinner last year in my old flat, but the excitement of being together took over the preparations; but this year it is symbolic of a new beginning for us. I have crossed an ocean and we are free; free of fears and chains of the past, I hope.

Elio texted me that he was getting the last things at the bakery at Portico d’Ottavia; I loved that part of Rome, it was so alien for an American but comforting as well. Elio pointed out that it had the same effect on him, after all the Jewish community of Rome was one of the oldest; there since the empire.

Titus and I turned our heads as we heard the key turn in the door, and we both ran towards Elio that laughed at the welcome he was getting; he picked up Titus and kissed me.   
At dinner I loved the lamb and vegetable lasagne with pane azzimo and the lemon cake; we both shared the wine and felt blessed.

After I called the boys, telling them how much I missed them, I joined Elio on the couch. I rested my head on his lap; when he joins me he likes to rest his feet on my lap, he says he likes to look at me. I love his feet, long and narrow with such a pronounced arch; I could spend a lifetime kissing and stroking them while he slowly caresses my chest with them, or rubs my crotch.  
But now feeling his hands on my hair, slowly rubbing my scalp and twisting my thinning hair around his fingers is bliss. 

“Shall we watch some tv? Your Italian is getting better; a bit of practice will do you good.”  
“My Italian is perfect! Ti amo, ti adoro, ti voglio! What more do I need to know?”  
“Oliver if that is what you intend to say to students and colleagues or the butcher down the road, I am going to keep you locked in the house!” He reaches for the remote and as the tv was switched on I recognised the film.   
It was Maurice, dubbed into Italian. We both looked at the screen as motorists that cannot help watching a terrible crash on the motorway as they are driving past.

“Did you see it when it came out?” I asked, memories tumbling in uninvited.  
“No, I had read the book and it was too raw for me to watch it when it came out. I have seen it many times after; I think it is among my favourite films now, one of the few that give hope, that do not end with death and disgrace.” His voice was so soft and the slight trace of bitterness was not directed towards me but society.

I looked at the screen and saw Clive break away from embracing Maurice as people enter the room. It was too close to the truth.  
I remember that I saw the film in October in New York a few weeks after it came out, the summer in B was slowly receding from my senses but not my heart.   
I was Clive and as I watched I felt it was my life played on screen, being slowly sucked into conformity and dying inside I felt sick; but I also felt relieved that Maurice met and fell in love with Alec. There was hope, not for me, but there was hope for Elio. I cried alone in the theatre.

Sarah had also seen the film and defended it while discussing it with others; we were all sitting at the small dining table in my flat. Someone, probably David, had said it was irresponsible to make such a film in praise of sexuality when gays were dying of AIDS.  
“Irresponsible how? Should they just pretend that they do not have feelings? It is a love story, just because it is between men it makes no difference!” Her face was so earnest that I felt like kissing her.   
She would never know how her words were a balm for me. She never knew that I went to see the film.

“Oliver, are you ok? I shall change channel if you want.”  
Elio was looking down at me with such concern; he ran his finger along the bridge of my nose.  
“I did see the film when it came out; it was painful, you were right to avoid it. But it did give me an illusion that things would be fine for you Elio, that you were Maurice and would meet an Alec and I was the pitiful Clive. The last conversation between them felt a lot like us at Christmas. Art imitating life.”

Elio bent down and kissed the top of my head “I would like to see you try to keep me into a sexless relationship for years. If I am Maurice you are not Clive Oliver, you have always been Alec, the one that woke my sexuality and made me discover a world I could freely live in. It just took us a few years before we could run away together.”

I kissed his lips muttering “Oliver.” We made out like horny teenagers on the couch while the ignored tv was still on.

Later, as Elio straddled me, he wondered aloud “I wonder how James Ivory would script our story?”  
“He would cast a gorgeous young French actor while I would be a beefy American. You would be the star of the film while I would be the cowardly one.” I ran my hand up his back.  
“Goose, I am sure your actor would be a gorgeous god and all your emotions would be fully natural and understandable to the viewers since you had to deal with a horny brat.”  
I nibbled his earlobe taking in his smell and texture, all my senses wanting to be overwhelmed by him.

“Scopami!” I begged.  
Elio’s eyes widened and a wicked smile lit his face “I am not sure where you learnt that, but never use it in front of anyone but me!”  
He removed his long limbs from me and standing took my hand pulling me up. “Come on muvie star, your desires are my orders!”  
We ran towards the bedroom leaving a startled Titus in the living room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Scopami is Italian slang for fuck me. As Elio points out, I hope Oliver knows when to use it…


	17. The Question

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver has an interview at an overseas American university. He thinks of the past and the present and dreads the inevitable question at the interview.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for comments and kudos!  
> The following chapters will concentrate on Oliver, how he is facing the future and his past. Probably this is the reason I am having a bit of a writer’s block; while I can write my Elio seamlessly for hours, I still find Oliver a bit of an enigma. I am slowly building his past though. This chapter is important for his growth...

The light filtering through the shutters wakes me, I look at the clock, and it is not early, just past eight.

Elio is asleep, curled up with his hand under his cheek; he looks so young and I stop myself from stroking him, I do not want to wake him, he has no lessons today.  
I get up carefully, not to make a noise and silently pick up the clothes I had prepared the night before.

I look at myself in the bathroom mirror as I shave; I admit I still look good, there is a slight blurring of my features, lines around my eyes and my mouth and my forehead is getting higher, but not bad for my age. My father looked much older at the same age; probably all the bitterness he has towards life aged him.   
But I do not want to think of him, ever.

Titus is waiting hopefully for me outside the bathroom “Sorry kid, your dad feeds you.” His mew is accusing as he follows me to the kitchen.  
I brew a coffee and have some bread and Nutella standing at the counter.  
I am nervous, it is just an interview, I have had many, but I am nervous.

The position is good, teaching philosophy of art, a new field for me to explore, a subject I only had scratched the surface of in the past; and I was in the right country to explore the subject. But will they want me?   
Someone who has left a perfectly good place, an exceptional post, for no reason other than love?  
Can I explain during the interview that “I cannot bear to be away from the man I have loved for over twenty years. The man I abandoned and never thought I would embrace again.”  
Thank goodness I have rehearsed some more sensible options; sensible for the outside world, not the world Elio and I live in. 

I place the mug in the sink and pick up my brief case and jacket, I will walk to the interview, I have time. I hear Elio get up.

“Oliver, are you going without waking me? I want to wish you luck!”  
His voice is sleepy as his eyes, he is just wearing a t-shirt and boxers and I feel the usual wave of desire overwhelming me.   
Before his first coffee he is unable of coherent thought so he just hugs me tightly “In bocca al lupo Elio!” he whispers.  
I kiss him “See you at lunch Oliver, will text you when I am done.”  
He nods and stands at the door watching me till I disappear down the stairs.   
How I wanted to spend the morning lazing in bed with him, kissing him till he moans, feel his skin against mine till I cannot tell us apart. Just watching him gives me so much happiness, knowing that he is next to me after I spent years in the thinking I would never be with him; I could occasionally see him, talk to him, but not be part of him.

Rome is the usual chaos of traffic and people; I walk quickly even if I have plenty of time.   
I cut through the Imperial Forums, the vision of the past places all my worries and fears into place; why worry about my life that is just a drop in the sea of time? Empires that were built and crumbled are ruins in front of me; life moves and if you stand still you will be lost.

The Tiber flows and I stop to look at it; it is the colour of Elio’s eyes.   
“Thank you Oliver, you have just compered the colour of my eyes to the filthy water of a polluted river. You are aware that the mud green colour derives from the sewer waste?”   
He was really offended when I told him, he is as vain as a peacock and I love standing next to him as he preens his feathers. He is so beautiful that sometimes I bite him just to mark him; he is mine, until he wants to be mine, that is.

I cross the old Ponte Sisto and Rome is before me; a city that showed me what life could be twenty years ago, but I was too young and scared to grab the vision in front of me.   
It would have been a different life, but I am sure the parallel life offered would now be moving in the same direction of my present life; Rome and Elio, the only sorrow in my soul would be the absence of the boys.  
How all were looking at us that night at the party, sensing that our bright flame would be soon dimmed by time and life; they envied our carefree youth that is but a short moment in a lifetime that scars you.   
I did not quite understand the San Clemente syndrome parable; I thought I did when hungover we visited the church the next day.   
I kissed Elio in the Mithraic temple, a quick and almost guilty kiss; the beginning of the long goodbye. Now I know that like San Clemente all the layers on my soul added by the years just hid the presence of Elio underneath; he was always there, the secret temple.

The university is a fine building and the students hanging around seem to be nice kids.  
As I sit in front of the commission my nerves disappear, they look nice and I feel I would like to work with them. 

Of course one of the first questions they ask is why have I moved to Rome leaving my previous position?  
I think of all the answers I prepared this last week, the excuses and sensible justifications I had ready for the inevitable question.  
I simply answer: “Because my partner lives here and it would have been difficult for him to move to the States.”  
As the phrase hovers in the air above us all I feel free; the last knot around my heart loosens and I am so light I think I am floating.   
I cannot remember how the rest of the interview continues; I can just sense the smiles and nods of agreement as I talk. 

I really want it to be over so that I can see Elio again, even four hours away from him is too long.  
As soon as I finish I text him; we will have lunch together and walk back home; our home in our city.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In bocca al lupo means good luck, literally in the mouth of the wolf. In England we say break a leg.


	18. Sharing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Living together is not easy.  
> Sometimes the smaller problems are the most irritating.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the lovely comments!   
> I really feel for Elio in this chapter but he is also learning...

I found his boxers crumpled under the bed; I think they were the ones he tried to use to tie my wrists the other night. He does tend to throw his boxers away gleefully, I do not mind; if only he would pick them up again.   
The kitchen was a mess, coffee cup abandoned in the sink without being rinsed, bread crumbs everywhere and a large dollop of Nutella left to congeal on the counter.   
As I fed Titus and cleared the kitchen I thought that as Oliver loved to cook, and was a great cook, but he did manage to use every single appliance that existed in the small kitchen, and after the meal the place looked like the aftermath of the battle of Teutoburg. 

It was logical really, Oliver had seamlessly passed from a shared flat as a student to a marital home; there were always others to pick up the pieces. He never had lived on his own, an empty home where things that you leave will stay there until you put them away. 

I was not a tidy person, but I liked a sense of cleanliness, Maria came three times a week to clean and order the house, and I disliked the thought of her finding a mess.  
In the study it was not different, my desk had an unstable pile of papers and books; all around the couch, scattered on the floor as a barrier, there was a ring of papers and books where Oliver worked that I had to step over.

And yet he was much more fastidious on his appearance that I. I still smiled how Julian thought how elegant I was; it was the luck of being slim and privileged enough to buy good quality and natural fibres; linen, cashmere, I always loved the feeling against my skin; my mother had instilled her sense of style.   
But as soon as I got out of my work suits I was in jeans or shorts; I could spend an entire day just in my boxers, to Oliver’s delight.   
I cut my hair when I felt it was too long and going to any barber I happened to pass, the only exercise I did was sex and walking, I also swam and played tennis in the summer, the love of running passed as soon as Oliver left my side.  
He still ran every day and tried to get me to go with him, but if I did go with him sometimes it was only at the villa; Rome traffic was too horrible for me to face before being totally awake.

I was lucky that I inherited my mother’s side of the family’s metabolism, I remained slim even if I did not deserve to.  
Oliver was fastidious on how he looked and treated his body. The young man that arrived for the summer with three swimming trunks, a couple of pair of shorts and one pair of trousers and some shirts had morphed into the man that filled more than half of my wardrobe.   
Of course, his clothes were larger than mine, my thigh could fit with space to spare in the collar of his t-shirt; but there many different types of clothes, as though each combination was a role he performed. 

The other evening while I was on the couch with my legs resting on Oliver’s lap he started tutting about the length of my toe nails and started trimming them while kissing my feet; the intimacy of the act overwrote the slight irritation I felt about his fussiness, I was not some guru that decided not to cut his nails.

When Tiziano and I shared a flat things were easier, I was young and not used to years living on my own and set in my ways; we were working hard so we hardly ever were in the house and acted like flatmates when we were.  
Sometimes I feel like I need my space and the thought terrifies me, because I love Oliver and could not bear to be away from him; even now when he is at an interview at an overseas American university to see if he can start teaching next semester I miss him; I want to be near him and hold his hand.   
But I also need a place to be me without having to be us; I am afraid he will not understand if I try to explain this need I have.

He texts me to say all went well and did I want to meet him and have lunch somewhere.  
As I leave the flat I meet my neighbour, Signora Irene, an elderly and sweet widow. We exchange the usual greetings, but she seems troubled. Her health is not getting better, and she would like to move north to be nearer her daughter, she is worried about the stress of putting her flat up for sale.   
I have been blessed by the Gods again! Her flat is larger than mine and has a terrace. I quickly let her know that I am interested and run to meet Oliver and give him the news.

My heart beats faster as I see him leaning against a wall, hands in his tweed jacket pockets, eyes half closed lost in thought. I really wonder how the people in the street are not frozen to the spot admiring him.   
“Elio, I got the job!” His hug lifts me off the ground; he is the only one that makes me feel small and protected.   
“Oliver, we might have our new flat!”  
We both laugh on how good news brings on more new good news, and if it works by threes, there is something else to look forward to; a tipsy and aroused Oliver tonight is my hope.

He describes the university and how he will be teaching philosophy of art, excited about Neo-Platonism in the Renaissance and how to structure the course; I feel that he is worth more than this, but he is happy and in the past people in his life pushed him towards what they thought was right for him and it made him unhappy. I shall not be one of them; I shall stand beside all his decisions.  
“The lady next door is selling her flat Oliver! I can unite them and we will have a flat with two studies, two bathrooms and two bedrooms! She has a large terrace and just think of the size of the living room we will have…”   
“Two of everything Elio, so you want us to be living each in our own space?”

I look at him with what I am sure is a mixture of horror and guilt. He must have felt some of my frustrations that I thought I had hid so well.

“No! I want us to have space for your sons; I want a grand piano so that I can play with the right intensity when I feel happiness overwhelming me; a terrace to eat out in the warm evenings watching the sky together. I want your books and furniture so that you can feel part of the home. I want space for us to grow and expand in this new life they have together.”  
I kissed his cheek lightly “You are not getting away from my bed that easily!”

He looked relieved and I knew we needed to have a conversation about house rules, but not now, he was still fragile where I was concerned, he needed reassurance and I needed to be mature and not emotional. When we move in the new flat we can discuss it.

“So will you tie me to the bed?” His hopeful tone was enough to stoke the fire that never waned where Oliver was concerned.   
“If you try to run away, yes I will! If, on the other hand, you behave I will let you tie me…”  
All thoughts of having lunch somewhere are eclipsed and we almost ran back to the flat.  
I was proud of the fact that I made no comment about how he throws his boxers on the floor and never picks them up; but I had pulled out a couple of silk neckties that I had almost forgotten I had and placed them on the bed ready to be used.   
The art of cohabitation is compromise.


	19. The Unknown Soldier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver is shown his past in a different light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for comments! Love comments...  
> This next set of chapters is all about Oliver as I explore his life. Needless to say, I am having difficulty in writing them! I could write a thousand words from my Elio's point of view in a second, he comes naturally to me, but Oliver is an enigma in a maze, to himself as well as to me. Hope I manage to resolve him.  
> Use of homophobic word in the text, just to warn you.

“That is fantastic news! You must come and see us when in Italy; the villa at B is a perfect place to wind down before going to Nice!”  
I made the invitation without thinking about what Elio thought, but I was so happy to hear from David again that I did not think; I closed the conversation and turned and I saw a fragment of unease travel across Elio’s face.   
It was so slight that I could easily pretend I did not see it, but in the regime of the Soviet, as Elio nicknamed the times we needed to be completely truthful, we decided to be open even if it hurt.

“I am sorry Elio, I was just so happy to hear from him again that I unforgivably forgot to ask if you were ok with me inviting them to the villa.”  
Elio smiled but it did not quite reach his eyes “You know that the villa is yours as well, I am just nervous about meeting your past, I still feel a fraud. Do they know about me, us?”  
I guiltily shook my head; I wanted to tell him in person.

“David was a dear friend during university, we were flat mates throughout; later Sarah and I were best friends with David and his wife Liz. After the divorce I wanted them to be close to Sarah, I did not want her to lose anything, so I was resigned to lose David’s friendship; just hearing from him made me so happy. I need to tell him in person.”

Elio nodded, he knew the importance of talking face to face. His lessons had finished and he needed to be back in Rome for exams only a few days at the end of June, when David and Liz arrived; it gave me a couple of days to explain to them about Elio, and, if they decided it was too much for them, they would be gone before he came back.   
I wanted to avoid any hurt to Elio, my own pain meant nothing if I could avoid him being hurt.

As I was driving to Milan airport to pick them up I thought about that phone call to Elio when I arrived back to New York; it had been the worse day in my life, and actually, thinking back, it still was even comparing it to all the rest of pain I caused myself and others.  
David could see that there was something troubling me as I arrived to the flat, but I told him it was jet lag.   
As Elio told me that he wanted to be with me in my small room, just with his music scores, and start all over again, I was overwhelmed by the thought of it being possible and that was when David called me for lunch. 

“Hey I invited Sarah to come along, she has been pining for you all summer you lucky dog!”  
I must of have gone white as he continued “She is a sweet kid, I do not know who you met in Italy bud, but it was summer, and summer is over, unless you are thinking of moving back there you have to look at the future!”  
He was right I thought, as he was always logically right.   
Later my parents carefully placed more nails onto the coffin where my dreams were placed, by comparing me to my cousin Josh who married last spring.

David kept inviting Sarah to all the get togethers “If you like Sarah so much date her yourself!” I exploded once. “She is just right for you Olly, perfect and a sweet girl in love.”  
By Christmas I had given up.   
I surrender to my expected life, placed a sequence of masks for any occasion and shattered Elio’s heart while tying a tight knot around my own.  
A year after marrying Sarah David married Liz, he had known her for less than a year, but the four of us fitted well, double dates, shared baby-sitters and holidays with all the family.  
Till Sarah and I divorced.   
The last time I saw David I was the shell of myself, filled with pain and self-loathing.   
“Are you sure you cannot patch it up? Marriage counselling?” He was worried for me and, as usual, had practical solutions for everything. I shook my head, too tired to talk about the ruins of my marriage.   
“Please can you and Liz be there for her?” I asked; he looked distraught, but agreed.   
We kept up occasionally by email or phone, but after two and a half years I was going to see him again. I was happy but uneasy.

I saw them as I entered the arrivals. It was funny how I looked like the perfect WASP and was not while he was the perfect WASP while being shorter and darker than I was.   
The drive to B was quite long, and we had time to catch up; their daughter Cloe was at summer camp and they decided to explore the Rivera alone after twenty years of marriage.  
We avoided speaking about Sarah, the boys had told me she was seeing someone, and about my love life. We just chatted about my new position I was starting at an international university and his law firm.

As we arrived at the villa David just said “I understand why you could never forget this place; there is something about it that pulls at each longing you ever had.”  
I had never heard him being so poetic.

Elio and I had prepared the guest lodge for them, so that they had more freedom; Mafalda had outdone herself with the dinner.   
After a few bottles of wine I approached the subject of Elio.  
“As I am sure you are aware, I am in a relationship, it is the reason I moved to Italy. I met Elio twenty three years ago here; he was the son of Professor Perlman that invited me. I never loved anybody as I loved Elio before or after. I was blessed to be given a second chance, and I took it and I now feel complete.”  
There was silence, Liz looked as though she had swallowed a wasp; David was inscrutable. 

“I knew. Sarah told me.” Liz was battling her liberal ideals against her loyalty to Sarah; her belief in LGBTQ rights and finding herself at the dinner table in front of a middle-aged fag that was the ex-husband of her best friend.  
The conversation I had with Sarah last summer about Elio was awkward enough, thank goodness she was and is a sweet person; goodness what she told Liz.  
“If you are happy Olly that is all that counts!”  
David filled his glass and raising it exclaimed “To happiness in all its forms!”  
I was so relieved I raised my glass and Liz, unsure, did the same.

They both retired after dinner to the lodge, I went to Pro and Annella’s ghost spot to reflect; I liked sitting there and talking to them.  
I heard him arrive; he was carrying a bottle of whiskey “Time for a nightcap Oliver!”  
I nodded and took him to the rocks by the beach, and like the times during college, when everything seemed possible, but our paths actually had been decided long ago, we drank from the bottle talking about nothing in particular.

“Olly, I need to confess, I knew about Elio long ago, when you came back from Italy. You had told me before you left that the Perlmans had a son, you were wondering how much of a spoilt brat he was. That day you were back you told me you were calling the professor, but your expression when the call ended told me that there was more to the conversation than a “I am back fine, thank you again for having me”.”  
He took another gulp from the bottle; he had actually drunk more than I had.   
“I pushed Sarah towards you; I needed you to get back with Sarah. I am so sorry Olly, so sorry, but if I could not have you it had to be nice girl, not some unknown Italian boy!”

Like some second rate movie I saw a sequence of moments David and I shared.   
“Hi, my name is David, so you have joined the running club? Cool!”  
“Do you like sailing Olly? I have a boat and this week end I am going to the Hamptons with my parents, care to join?”  
“There is a room free in our flat, do you want it? It is closer to the faculty than where you are now.”  
Only once before I had seen him as raw as now, when he drunkenly told me how much he loved the theatre and how his father told him it would be a good cause to finance in the future; it never dawned on him that David wanted to be an actor.

He was sobbing, still clutching the almost empty bottle “I am so sorry Olly, so sorry…”  
I lightly punched him on the shoulder, our ritual; the casual affection we thought was ok to show each other.  
“It’s ok buddy, it’s ok…” I mumbled.  
I hoped that next morning the conversation would be buried in the fog of a hangover.   
But I was too sober for that to happen.


	20. Doors Never Opened

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elio arrives at the villa and senses that something happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the comments. I am having a bit of difficulty in writing at the moment, the dredded writer's block. The worse think is not only I am having difficulty in writing, I also hate all that I have written! I might try writing with coupious amounts of wine, but then I fear what I might come out with...

The only thing that kept me from a nervous meltdown was that I was having to travel by train with Titus loudly complaining all the way; the embarrassment kept me from spiralling into negative thoughts. I was not looking forward arriving at the villa with Oliver’s friends staying there; if it made me a mean and resentful creature, so be it.  
On the other hand, a happy Oliver was a happy Elio.   
Hopefully all went well and he could make peace with another part of his past.

Titus calmed down when he saw Oliver waiting by the car, but as he quieted down, I started to panic in earnest, Oliver’s expression was that of a dazed veteran returning from the front line.  
As we drove to the villa he told me that David and Liz had gone to visit Portofino and would be back later this evening.   
Small mercies, I did not ask how “the conversation” went, but if they were still at the villa it should have been ok, so what was wrong with Oliver?.

When he introduced me to them that evening I was surprised, they were the classic well off WASP couple; she was tall and beautiful, her blondness worn like a divine right, desperately hanging on to her youth; he was handsome with a slight trace of weakness in his chin that he disguised with an open smile. I had met many similar types, but I never thought Oliver would have been close to them. 

Dinner was quite painful, sitting outside with the darkness encroaching the table I felt we were all stranded on an island; there was no way out.   
Liz looked at me with the same expression that I had all those years ago when gazing at Chiara, wondering what she had that I did not. I came to the conclusion then that Chiara’s vagina was the only answer; I wonder if Liz is thinking that the only possible solution in the comparison between me and Sarah is my cock.   
While Liz’s feelings are understandable, David is the one that is causing me unease, I cannot place my finger on what is troubling me; his interaction with Oliver is a sequence of push and pull.   
Oliver is distracted but careful with the words he chooses, the direction of the conversation and in pouring the wine.   
I catch an expression of pure hate directed to me from David, as he realises I saw it, his open smile appears as naturally as a rainbow after the thunderstorm. Masks were definitely what they both had in common.   
As always, when in panic, I text Marzia, asking if she and her family feel like coming over tomorrow; If ghosts are thinking to take root I need the girls to frighten them away.

During dinner Oliver exaggerates my musical talents; I feel as though he needs to justify my virtues.   
As the usual polite requests for me to play something move us into the sitting room, I feel as a trained monkey and I fear my playing will let Oliver down. My fingers hit the keys in a forceful manner, willing the notes to soar above the room and cleanse the atmosphere; fill the villa with my personality and my love for Oliver.   
David and Liz politely clap at the end; I wonder if they noticed my statement or chose to ignore it.

When we retire to bed Oliver clutches my hand and, with a pleading tone mixed with shame and hope, he asked if we can sleep in his, my, old room. “We will call the Soviet tomorrow morning and I will explain everything, but please Elio, can you bare to sleep there tonight?”  
I recognise a need that has nothing to do with nostalgia or make believe and I nod my agreement as I go into our bedroom to undress.   
The lights are off when I open the balcony doors; I stand naked in the moonlight looking at the man I love stretched out on the two twin beds pushed together.   
As he turns towards me I cannot see his expression as he whispers “Oliver”, I walk towards him well aware that my body is not as sleek as it was, kneeling by the bed I caress his face “Elio, Elio, Elio” are the only sounds I know I can make.   
The kiss is deep and comforting; I take him into my mouth knowing that this night is the one to pleasure him totally. We are re-living a scene that never happened that summer, but we both dreamed of during the lonely years of separation; when reality was kept at bay by longing and regret.  
As I slowly ride him, moving my hips to the rhythm of his moans, I sense his need to explore the corridors never walked down and the doors never opened; it has always been his obsession, as a scholar that works on fragments of sources, he is trained to picture infinite possibilities.   
I know that he has lived infinite lives with me, every time he opens a door I am there in his mind.  
He groans as he comes, falling limp back onto the bed. I lie next to him and start to kiss him, every inch of him, moving left to right, up to down.   
I feel him fall asleep so I lighten the pressure of my lips on his skin. I hear him mutter “Elio” with such a sweet tone I know he is embraced in a good dream, I am pleased, if there be dragons in the morning I shall destroy them; I need to protect him.

Mafalda’s presence at breakfast contains the unease felt the night before, even if I detect a look of disgust from David when I absentmindedly open the egg for Oliver, and, as we all move to the swimming pool, Marzia arrives.   
I can see that David and Liz feel at ease with her and Luca, both lawyers, their sort of people. Elena and Teresa ignore Oliver, to his dismay, as they search for Titus that rightfully decides to hide. As I explain to them who Titus was (and the rest of the Flavian dynasty) I see Marzia assessing the situation, her shrewd eyes concentrating on David.  
As Oliver and I play in the pool with the girls Marzia and Luca chat with David and Liz.

Lunch is a delight, catering for the girl’s tastes, Mafalda has a soft spot for children, and, after the meal we all go for a nap; except Marzia and I, we go for a talk.  
“Goodness Elio, I was not expecting the son of the founder of Johnston and de Witt to be your guest! Giants of law firms, good number to have on your phone if they ever arrest you for the crime of abuse of literary quotes.”  
“He would let me rot in gaol if it was ever a crime Marzia, he hates me! I know he has his reasons as an old friend of Oliver, but I suppose I was lulled by Alex and Julian’s reaction to me.”  
“Elio, he is desperately in love with Oliver; it is like a cancer for him, eating him away while maintaining the façade of the invincible man. He hides it well, but the way he looks at you and Oliver tell all the story.”  
Marzia, as always, was right; now all made sense, the looks, the half phrases, the atmosphere in the villa.   
I wonder if Oliver knew? He does know now, last night was a reaction to finding out. Was it a need to re-play his dreams as to paper over the regret of not knowing earlier? Did he regret not being able to freely love a man that was close to him before he knew me? Did he ever have feelings for him other than friendship? I was not the first man he slept with, was David the one?...  
“Elio, can you please stop obsessing on a negative spiral and come back to earth?” Marzia gave me the look of supreme annoyance.  
“Sorry, it is just second nature…”  
She slapped the top of my head quite hard “Go and talk to Oliver; I think that it has been a discovery for him as well.”  
She glared at me and went off to look for the girls while I sat down in the living room to read.   
The villa was silent and comforting; my, no, our shelter against the storms of life. I knew that Oliver would come to me when he was ready.

I must have fallen asleep, the room was shadowed as I woke and in a corner there was Oliver looking at me with such a sweet and sad expression.   
I raised my arms like a spoilt child that wants to be hugged and he came to me, crushing me in his arms and resting his head on my shoulder.  
“You do not need to tell me anything, not until you feel like it or are strong enough; but I am here and always will be.” I could not say anything else to him.  
My insecurities made me afraid, but I felt my love for him, he was my port in the storm, but I also wanted to protect him, and giving him the choice to speak or be silent was the only way I could.  
Because I trusted him, he truly was my lover, my friend, my brother and my father; my everything.


	21. David’s Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver and Elio talk; Oliver and David talk. At last they all talk!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for comments and kudos! They get me over the slump...  
> I am not 100% happy with this, but it has been around too long.   
> Giovanni’s Room is a novel by James Baldwin about David, an American in Paris, whose girlfriend is away and has an affair with an Italian barman, Giovanni. It ends in tears. I feel that Oliver spent so much time reading, since he had no way to talk about who he was and what he felt, but took it personally and each time saw himself as the characters in the book. Always the negative ones.

I watch Elio sleep, it always calms me; I wonder what is he dreaming.   
I count his curls and slowly memorise every line of him; each time there is something I never noticed, an expression or a pose, a freckle in a different spot, he is the infinite source of my soul.  
He must have sensed I am in the room, he awakes and silently holds his arms to me; I kneel in front of him and hug him.

“You do not need to tell me anything, not until you feel like it or are strong enough; but I am here and always will be.” He tells me.  
I nod, there is no need to speak; we know that the past has appeared once more to play with our convictions, but it hasn’t changed my present.   
“I remember reading Giovanni’s Room and the feeling of unease would not leave me. I tried to talk to others about it, but was brushed off. David decided to read it just to shut me up, and then he commented ‘What a group of wankers’ and that was all”  
I rest my head on Elio’s lap, the room is cool and I hear the comforting sound of cicadas outside.

“I always saw myself as the protagonist running away from his emotions, seeking a way out and I forgot about Giovanni.”  
“Well, all in the book were quite unpleasant figures, I am sorry to admit that David was right; self-inflicted tragedy is never a pleasant read.”  
His tone is harsh but his fingers are gentle as he strokes my head.  
“Yes, but I saw myself as quite unpleasant at Christmas that year.”  
Elio laughed “You were!” He bends and kisses my head “But so was I.”

“I always seem to forget about the Giovannis; the feelings of those around me or those left behind. I have hurt so many, you and Sarah deliberately and now David without knowing.”  
“Oliver, you never hurt David, he hurt himself, if he is hurting. We make choices in life, but they are not eternally binding; roads have forks all the time. We can go back, forward or just sit to rest. We cannot take into account people’s feelings if they are not honest about their feelings.”  
He shifts slightly, as to embrace me fully. “I am a master in regrets, and I know both of us like to talk about to speak or die, but it is not the only alternative; you can speak or get on with it. My father had regrets, but he still had a happy life with my mother and me. Regrets are human, inflating them till they take up all the space in your life was my speciality. But it is not anybody else’s fault but mine.”  
He kisses me lightly on the temple “Oliver, you have searched forgiveness from everyone, but can you please forgive yourself?”  
He was right, and I had nothing else to say. 

David entered the room as we were embraced and I turned towards him, still sitting on the floor with Elio’s arms around me.  
“Sorry, I was wondering if you both felt like going into town.”  
His words were light, but he was staring straight at Elio; I looked up, Elio was holding the gaze without malice or anger, just calm acceptance.  
“I am not sure, Elio, do you?”  
David lowered his eyes and Elio ruffled my hair “Why not? I feel like an ice-cream.”

As we walked in the square, near the First World War monument, Elio was chatting to Luca and the girls while Marzia and Liz were discussing their daughters; David and Liz had wanted children badly, and when Chloe came after years of trying their joy was immense, their daughter was their bond. I found myself walking with David at the back of the group. 

“You seem much younger Oliver, as though a weight was lifted. Younger than when I first met you.”  
I laugh freely for the first time this week. “I wish! To be twenty again with the knowledge of experience, the things one could do…” The road I would have taken; the hurt I would have avoided.  
“Indeed, the choices one would make would startle our younger selves.” He sounded convinced.  
“But would you have made them David? To be honest I am not sure I would have done so, even if I knew the future. The present is always overwhelming and we tend to idolize or demonise the past; the future is something to fear or place unfounded hope upon. We can only deal with now, and David, you have been and are important to me. I hope that in the future it will be the same.”

He did not look at me, I am not sure where his gaze was, it was focused on unseen things. We stopped; I watched the rest of the group enter the ice-cream shop.   
“I did terrible things to you Oliver” His voice was choked. I so wanted to hug him, but we never did such a thing as hugging.  
“You did terrible things to yourself, as I did to myself and others. We were young with hearts of glass that we tried to protect at all costs. We did not have the language to express ourselves; I learnt it by chance and it cost me dearly when I chose to ignore it. Elio said something that is true, regrets are human, but allowing the regrets to inflate and fill you is useless.”

I could not look at him, it was the first time we were having such an intimate conversation in nearly thirty years we had known each other.   
Elio and the girls were arguing on the choice of flavours; he looked so carefree, his head back and his long neck vulnerable, how many times I had nibbled it, he was trying to keep his cone away from Elena.   
I wonder how some people are dear friends and others lovers? A trick of fate? A roll of dice? Elio would say an elective affinity; from the first time I saw him all those years ago I wanted him totally, like I had never wanted someone before, and it frightened me.  
Much more frightened than the first time I went to a gay bar and made out with a man. Much more frightened than when a student gave me a blow job in the YMCA showers. Much more than my first time with the Dutch man in Amsterdam, it was also the first time I visited Europe. All those experiences I could dismiss as scratching an itch; Elio could not be dismissed, he was part of me before I was born.

“Regrets, I’ve had a few / But then again, too few to mention…” David started to sing.  
“The psychopath’s hymn” I muttered, he laughed.  
“I wonder if we had been younger or older, missing out the Maelstrom of AIDS, our lives would have been different…” He looked pensive.  
“Older I would have been dead, I was an idiot. Younger, I still would have been here; this is where I belong. I do not know the road I would have taken to arrive here though.” I knew my tone of voice was slightly arrogant in tone; the arrogance of conviction.  
He nodded; I wonder if he was trying to think where he belonged. 

“But David, we do belong in many places, sometimes in different places at the same time, other times the places change. You can never bath in the same river…”  
“You were obsessed with that I remember, the river is different, the water has passed… Are you in the same river now Oliver?”  
“I am in the river, it has different waters and a different Oliver, but the river’s name is the same.” The river named Elio.  
Liz called us, and we joined the group.

Dinner was a much calmer affair, Marzia and Elio argued about Italian politics, I did not understand them, but I am sure they did not either; Luca was trying to ignore Elena and Teresa that were looking for Titus under the table; Liz and David were silent. Liz looked at her husband with tenderness; she knew more about him than he ever imagined.   
After dinner Elio played the piano just for the girls, his knowledge of Walt Disney music was frightening, I wonder if he spent afternoons transcribing the songs; I could not stop myself from giggling at the thought.  
David looked at me and smiled; I think in that moment he knew what I was thinking and understood what tied me to Elio. 

We all saw Marzia and family off and retired to our rooms; Elio was in a cheerful mood, I think he sensed that I was lighter and that I had accepted that I was the unwitting protagonist of someone else’s drama. That there was nothing to forgive myself for.  
In bed Elio held me tight as a brother would, with love and tenderness. I sometimes forget that we are more than passion and desire.  
The next morning Liz and David left for the French Riviera; David punched me lightly on the shoulder “See you soon buddy!” I did the same “I hope so David, I really truly hope so.”  
I meant it.


	22. The Friendly Ghost Spots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver and Elio enjoying the villa in peace and quiet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the comments!  
> Just a short fluff filled chapter. Will be back with some drama soon, not too much drama, just enough to avoid tooth decay.

Elio was back in Rome for the week, I was left with Titus at the villa finishing the first part of Pro’s papers.   
Over a year of work and a 700 page volume to send to the publishers. The reasons my college gave me a sabbatical and then did not kick up a fuss when I resigned were Professor Perlman’s papers; they were eager to publish them.   
Pro has continued to help me even after his death; even after the pain I put his only son through.   
Every morning I say hello to him and Annella, thanking them for Elio.   
Their resting place is the most peaceful place in the world, bringing back memories of breakfasts and conversations; Elio so unbearably young sitting next to me, I was happy then, I am happy now.  
I miss him and I cannot believe that I preferred staying here while he was in Rome, that I was willing to waste any of the time we could be together because of my jealousy. He will be back tomorrow afternoon, and tomorrow feels twenty years away.  
_  
I see him running down the platform of the station. Bedroom hair, jeans and a t-shirt; I wonder where the suave Professor Elio Perlman has gone, there will always be a fragment of the teen-ager in him.  
“Oliver, I have missed you!” He hugs and kisses me not minding who is watching, and I kiss him back.

As we drive back we talk, or he talks, about anything and everything.  
“Oliver are you sure that the new kitchen is ok? You are the one that spends more time in it…”  
“Yes Elio, we saw it together and it is perfect. How are the works getting on?”  
“They have started knocking down the dividing walls, the dust is terrible! They do assure me that it will be ready for September, but I am not sure… Seeing all my books in boxes made me cry!”  
It must be difficult for him seeing his old flat disappearing, I rub his thigh and he smiles at me.  
“We do need new bookcases; you seem to have acquired quite a few books in a year Oliver! You know what that means…”   
His smile is mischievous and I feel like kissing him.  
“No, I will not set foot in IKEA with you ever again. You can choose what you like and I will not complain, but never again I will go there with you!”  
“Oliver! That is not fair!”  
“We spent hours there and you kept looking at everything! Every single item in the place, and then we left with cushions, rugs and pot plants; things we did not need and did not have space for!”  
Elio laughed “You forgot the couple of throws and the frames! But it is fun to go and think about how our home could look like; all the possible EliOliver homes we could be in.”  
I cannot deny it, it was fun; all the styles laid out where we could imagine being in.  
“Ok, no IKEA, but we are going to Milan to look at some of the design shops, pretty please!” His pleading look is irresistible.  
I cannot refuse him anything, I agree.

At the villa we shower together, washing each other, rubbing soap over bodies we know every fold of, which we have kissed in dreams and reality.   
As I run my finger down his spine I count each bone from his neck to the crack of his buttocks; I dig my finger into him and he hisses in surprise and pleasure. His pleasure is mine; I feel what he feels as if we are one body.   
We are the children of the Sun.

The next morning he is not in the bed when I wake up, I feel defrauded in not seeing his sleeping face; I know where he is and give him some time alone, before I go down and join him in his parent’s ghost spot.   
He is leaning against the wall and turns towards me as he hears me arriving. “Good morning Oliver, I was just telling them about the new flat and how happy I am.”  
“That is exactly what I told them yesterday!” I lightly kiss him.  
“They must be getting bored hearing the same things.” Elio makes a small wave as to say bye to them as he goes back into the villa.  
“Happy news is never boring.” 

At breakfast Elio looks at Mafalda and I can tell he is worried by the small vertical line that appears on the bridge of his nose; not a frown, just a tensing of a nerve.  
I know he wants her to rest and retire, but is afraid of hurting her. It is something we will try to solve this summer, we will discuss solutions while trying to lighten her load without her noticing.   
“Let us have a pic-nick today!” I suggest “Mafalda oggi mangiamo fuori” My Italian is slowly getting better.   
“What a wonderful idea! Where?” Elio is childishly enthusiastic and I have to stop myself from saying “It is a surprise”. I say “You will see” instead.   
I love his pouting expression.

As we ride along the narrow roads he soon recognises where we are headed to; he is almost bouncing on his bike seat in excitement.  
The berm has been a place of joy and sorrow, first kisses and tears; two years ago I was at my lowest sitting under a tree here, but it was where I decided to do something of my life. I know that Elio has been through similar experiences here. 

We lie on the grass, side by side and kiss. I see our younger selves kissing for the first time, afraid of what was happening.   
I see us laughing and making out during the two weeks that stretched in our souls during the barren years.   
I hug him tightly because he is here with me and I am never going to let him go.   
“Elio” His voice is sweet and there is no fear in it.   
No fear of rejection as the first time he brought me to the berm; no fear of losing me as the last time we went during that summer.  
“Oliver” I call him, and we roll in the grass.   
As when we were younger, we cannot get enough of each other, time is the enemy, but just because it is finite as our lives are; not artificially finite as a short summer is.  
The ghosts look on at us and I know they are smiling; at last we are we are meant to be: in each other’s arms.


	23. Learning to let go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summer at the villa with Julian, and Oliver is afraid of history repeating itself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your comments! Life and work is catching up on me once again, so a very slow writing time for me...   
> Tancredi could take over the story so I had to place him far away and I lover writing Julian, but Alex will be back soon. Oliver learns the difference from letting go and pushing over a cliff.

Alex decided to go on holiday with his girlfriend; trekking along the Appalachian Mountains. Only Julian arrived at the end of July to Oliver’s sorrow.  
I know he misses them so much and I feel so guilty each time I see his longing, as though I defrauded him in some way. 

Being alone in the villa with two middle-aged bores, I was reading and playing the piano while Oliver was finishing the first volume of father’s papers and working in the orchard, Julian was a bit listless.   
The only thing I could do was open the villa to all the neighbouring adolescents; the presence of a swimming pool and a tennis court was a lure difficult to ignore.  
“Goodness Elio, there are more kids here than when we were young! Who are they all?”  
“There is Chiara’s eldest son, her sister’s kids, Marzia’s cousins; time passes for us all and most of us have procreated!” Oliver was going to say something, but stopped; I wonder what was on his mind.  
Julian was enjoying being the good looking Americano in the middle of the group, and I could not stop myself from smiling looking at the adoring gazes the girls gave him.   
Nature and its wicked ways.

Of course, being Oliver’s son, he was mostly gravitating around Chiara’s son Tancredi; it drove Oliver mad.  
“He is a good looking boy, but…” He looked so uncomfortable that I did not know if to reassure him or tell him off.   
“Oliver, it is 2010 and history doesn’t repeat itself. Let them be, they are so different that I doubt anything would happen, Tancredi is not a younger version of me just as Julian is very different from you.” He did not look convinced.   
As the youngsters splashed in the pool I observed Chiara’s son from her first marriage; he was very good-looking, took after his mother, but also very rich, son of a Swiss pharmaceuticals owner, and spoilt. His parents knew the cost of everything and the value of nothing; he had learnt at an early age how to misbehave as to gain their attention.   
So different from Oliver’s sons, much loved and secure thanks to their parent’s love. I was lucky with my parents as well.  
After dinner Julian liked to go out; the first night he did so, Oliver wanted to follow him.

“Oliver I have not set foot at the Dancing since that summer and I have no intention to do so now! Julian is legally an adult, what are you worried about? He is alone when he is at college.”  
“I am just worried he will get hurt in some way. He is so outspoken…” He blushed and played with his fork not looking at me.   
I knew what troubled him and I felt very irritated.  
“Oliver your son is gay; there will be those who will accept him and those who will not. He knows that, he has faced it; you cannot protect him from life. Just be there for him when needed as you are for Alex.”   
We sat in the darkness and the weight of our pasts fell upon us; he was trying to be different from his own family, but it was not necessarily the right way to do it.

“I came out to my parents the summer of 89, my first year at college. I spent the holidays in Rome, the first time away from the villa; it was the most hedonistic month in my lifetime.”   
I was glad it was dark and Oliver would not see my expressions; Jamie was something I wanted to keep to myself, the final secret of a revelation that still hurt. All the rest I was ready to tell.  
“I am quite ashamed when I think back, I experimented everything there was, dissoluto assoluto. But I had people around me to guide me and protect me as much as possible, but they let me make mistakes so that I could find myself. And I found myself and returned home to my parents shedding the child I was; they embraced me and I never doubted their love. They let me go for me to return.”

“I am afraid of letting people go; I did it for the wrong reasons in the past Elio. I let you go for fear.”  
I heard his voice crack.   
“Oliver you did not let me go, you pushed me off the side of a cliff!”   
I grabbed his hands, I could imagine his distraught face “And I climbed back up to you because I could never stop loving you.” I kissed the tip of his nose “I want you now as I wanted you then; we have a free house and I need you to make me moan so much that the chandeliers crash to the ground!”  
“I am pleased to oblige Elio, but you deal with an angry Mafalda in the morning!” His voice deepened.

I woke up in the middle of the night; Oliver was not in the bed, so I got up and joined him on the balcony.   
I suppose he smiled when he saw me, it was dark, and so I could not tell. I hope he smiled.  
We sat in silence till he said “Letting go is something I have difficulty in doing. I held on to my parents that were slowly killing me and onto a marriage that was dead. The only person I let go was you, and I regretted it ever since. I suppose I am frightened for Julian, all my youthful fears have transferred onto him and I do not know how to overcome them!”  
I rested my head on his shoulder, when he was so vulnerable I could not resist him; if only I could collect his fears and regrets and carry them, to lighten his load; it would be a burden I would gladly carry.  
“Oliver, being afraid is human, but you are not casting Julian out alone into the world, as would have happened to you; you trust him and ready to catch him if he falls. You are a splendid father and both of your boys love you.”  
He placed an arm on my shoulders and pressed me against him. We sat in silence and just when he started nibbling my earlobe, Julian came back.

“It was a great night, thank you again Tancredi, their expressions were priceless!”  
“It was fun! You are a good kisser for a man Julian, I might be tempted to steal some more…” Tancredi’s voice was playful and I felt Oliver’s body go rigid.   
Listening in on Julian’s conversations was always fun, but not for Oliver.  
“Whenever you want, but they won’t be stolen! Hope to see you soon and have a good time in Greece.”  
“I will, I will you know me…”  
I rubbed Oliver’s arm and made quiet soothing noises, the same I used for Titus when there was a thunderstorm.   
I managed to get him back into bed but not to sleep.

Julian was late at breakfast, he was sleepy and his hair was messy; I greeted him with the largest Cheshire cat smile, Oliver was looking at the bottom of his empty coffee cup.  
“How was The Dancing last night, the usual pit of debauchery?” I asked.  
“It was a blast! There were a group of kids making trying to make fun of me, could not understand what they were saying thankfully, but Tancredi got angry and kissed me in the middle of the dance floor. We made out for a bit and that shut them up! Then we all started to kiss each other, there are some fantastic kissers among the kids; Luca the DJ put on Love is Love by Culture Club and the evening was high without stimulants. What a night!”

Julian was ecstatic; Oliver was looking at him as though an alien had just landed at the breakfast table.   
I laughed till it hurt, Tancredi the most handsome and rich kid among them all, the Alpha male, just taught all the youth of B a lesson; he definitely is part of my mother’s side of the family.   
“I will miss him now he is in Greece, goodness knows what he will do, seduce his father’s latest trophy girlfriend?” Julian wondered.  
“Find his father’s stash of cocaine and blow it all with deplorables he picks up in Mykonos” I reply.  
As Julian and I suggest wilder, and possible, exploits we are sure Tancredi will get up to, Oliver starts to laugh “With a bit of luck he will be deported back to Italy before you leave Julian!”   
The vision of Tancredi handcuffed and escorted to a plane for Milan made us all laugh so much that it hurt; Mafalda looked at us as we were lunatics, and we were.  
Letting go is a slow process, but as with trust, it has to start somewhere.


	24. Dionysus and his Panther

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver tries to work but is distracted by Dionysus and his panther...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fluff! A chapter of fluff... I am a bit behind with Coda, I like to have at least three chapters in the can before I publish one, but there is only one! I was inspired by Golden Sun so was writing that and I thought this week end would be perfect, but WORK has intruded... No worries, will catch up!   
> Thank you all for the lovely comments...   
> Julian has the paitience of a Saint.  
> Oliver is reciting the Orphic hymn to Baccus/Dionysus  
> Elio is reciting the Delphic hymn to Apollo with a couple of changes.  
> The Apollonian and Dionysian concept was used by German philosophers, most notably Nietzsche, to explain the evolution of mankind or the arts. It is still used as an example of opposites that are both integral to human evolution.  
> Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli was an Italian piano maestro, he was very technical and could feel if there was anything wrong with his piano, humidity especially.

The afternoon sun is much milder, summer is slowly winding down; Julian has gone to the beach, Elio is asleep on a deckchair in the shade and I am at the table under the arbour editing Pro’s book. Actually, I was editing the book, but Titus is now curled asleep on the papers I was proofreading.  
I have never been a cat person, I had a Labrador when I was a child and Sarah and I got a labrapoodle for the boys.   
Cats are treacherous, they love the house and not the people, they only show affection when hungry; all these things I thought and then I met Elio.  
The most feline person I ever met, inquisitive and secretive, he moves aware of the space around him, seeks affection and is vain.   
I poke Titus’ nose “Why are you sleeping here and not with daddy? I have work to do.” He looks at me with a bored expression and then closes his eyes again ignoring me, but I do not have the courage to move him. 

Elio wakes and stretches, raising his arms and arching his back; so feline, so desirable.   
His bare chest glitters with sweat and I long to lick it. He throws his head back, exposing his long neck and I am overwhelmed by the need to bite it as some crazed vampire.  
Turning towards me he asks “Do you want a beer Oliver?” I nod and Titus and I watch him walk to the villa, hips swaying, long limbs loose and the small paunch he always had when he curved his back, which I love to nibble.   
I manage to pull out some papers from under Titus and smile when I see that it is the chapter on Dionysus, god of wine, ritual madness, ecstasy and foreignness.   
It sums up what Elio was for me that summer long ago.

He returns placing a beer on the table, kisses the top of my head and sits on my lap.  
“You are not as light as you were Elio!” I exaggeratedly groan.  
“Of course I am! Your old knees cannot hold the weight…”   
As he drinks from the bottle I watch his Adam’s apple move, I am so tempted to place a finger on it and feel the beat of his pulse, his life.  
Titus gets up and nuzzles Elio’s hand.  
“If Titus gets onto your lap the added weight will break the chair!”   
Both of them look at me offended and I laugh; I tickle Elio under the chin “Purr for me Oliver” I ask.  
“Elio, Elio…” His voice gets deeper each vowel he breathes, and I am tempted to make love with him on the table there and then. 

“Lovebirds, I am back! Can you please stop being so cavities inducing?” Julian picks up my untouched bottle of beer and drinks half of it in one gulp.   
“Make the most of it Little Emperor, it is a year and a bit till you can do the same back home!” and reach out to snatch the bottle back from him.  
He gives me a look of utter contempt; I wonder how many false IDs he has in his wallet. I am sure I had many more at his age. 

“Father’s work on Dionysus! I remember when he started researching this article, after that summer!” Elio picks up the papers now that Titus has jumped off the table.  
“His ideas about the function of the cult are interesting; an Eastern influence probably arrived with the vine cultivation.”  
“Yes, but the way your father tied it with the orphic cult is interesting, a fusion of beliefs throughout the ages…” I reply automatically.  
“If you are both going to talk about dead gods and philosophy, I am off!” Julian waves and walks towards the villa; Elio gives me a wicked smile; he got the reaction he wanted.  
“Where were we before youth interrupted senile passion?” He asked while nuzzling my neck.   
“You are a wicked man Elio, deceitful and cruel; for this reason I adore you!” I kiss him deeply while his fingers curl into my hair; his bare chest tempts me, and I start pinching his nipples and hear him moan. 

Later, much later, as dinner time was approaching, I looked at the abandoned manuscript while rubbing the hickey on my neck.   
Elio returned from the villa with a carafe of water; his lips were red and swollen, ripe for more kisses.  
As he places the tray on the table I implore him “Immortal daemon, hear my suppliant voice, give me in blameless plenty to rejoice.”   
“So you are adoring me? I like it; but I do prefer adoring you! Sing in honour of American Phoebus, golden haired, skilled archer and historian, whom blessed Leto bore beside the celebrated marsh, grasping with her hands a sturdy branch of the grey-green OLIVE tree in her time of travail.”  
He quoted the Delphic hymn to me keeping his eyes closed, as though it was a daily prayer; I wonder if he memorised it years ago.  
I kissed him. “So I think you are Dionysus and you think I am Apollo; we are both very ambitious towards each other…”  
“But it is true Oliver, we are the Apollonian and Dionysian dichotomy; you are rational thinking, order, logic, prudence and purity while I am irrationality, chaos, emotions and instincts. But together we make it work!”  
“Elio, I wish I was logical and rational, and my prudence worked against me! You are so more than chaos!”

In that moment Elio’s phone rang. “Pronto, si… veramente? Domani mattina arrivo!” The pitch of his voice rises in excitement.  
“Oliver great news! The Steinway grand piano that Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli sometimes used is for sale! We are going to Brescia tomorrow morning to make an offer they cannot refuse! I had my eye on it for years.”   
“But you have a grand piano…”  
“Here yes, but not in Rome! I have promised the upright to Betta’s niece, I need a grand piano in the new flat… and it is a Steinway that Michelangeli used! Can you imagine playing on it?”  
Elio looked like a little boy who was told that all Christmases had arrived at once, eyes sparkling with excitement, he was as an arrow ready to be released from the tightly strung bow; he would drive to Brescia now if he could.  
He skipped towards the villa singing “I have the piano, I have the piano!”  
Titus appeared and followed him into the house.   
Chaos, irrationality, emotions, ecstasy; Elio my Dionysus with his panther.   
Like a Maenad I go mad every time I see or think of him.  
I put away the papers feeling guilty that not much work had been done.

I must still have had a stupid smile on my face at the dinner table, Julian looks at me perplexed and then at Elio who is still excited and bouncing on his chair.   
“I think I am going out tonight and stay out! The two of you are freaking me out!” He is the picture of outrage of youth.  
“Do not worry Julian; I have been cast aside in favour of a piano…” I dramatically place the back of my hand on my forehead in mock desperation.  
Elio looked up from his plate, and holding his fork in mid-air said “Oliver is just jealous that I am thinking of a grand piano and not a grand trumpet.”  
He had such an innocent expression, but I kicked him hard under the table anyway.   
I knew I would pay for it the minute we were in the bedroom, but it was no punishment.


	25. A Home Fit for Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver and Elio move into the new flat and have a conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for comments and kudos! I am happy that my scribbles on Oliver and Elio are appriciated.   
> I have been a bit behind with Coda, life, work and Golden Sun have been getting in the way, but I started another chapter today, except the cat decided to bring in a dying large rat as a present for me. As you can immagine, I could not quite write after that. I suppose Elio can have the same reaction if Titus brings him a similar present... If the neighbours do not call the police while I am burying the rat at the bottom of the garden tonight, there will be another chapter next week. (Wonders if being in a cell in peace and quiet will help her write...)

The work in the flat has nearly finished, just the second bathroom is being painted.   
I have managed to rid the flat of dust and Oliver’s things have arrived; so many books and now the space to put them, when we have the bookcases of course.  
The grand piano was a nightmare to get into the flat and it does occupy a large portion of the sitting room; I glare at Oliver every time I bump into it daring him to say anything. He laughs.  
I feel guilty, so I over compensated for his birthday; after he opened the fifth present he begged me to stop. Of course, I did not.  
There are so many framed photos of his sons in the house that I pleaded with Marzia to send me an A4 photo of Elena and Teresa to even things out; but we placed together a photo of my parents on the piano, it was a truce and we both wanted them to be in the centre of our flat.  
Oliver’s study is perfect; his desk arrived from the US, bookcases all around and a bed settee, but still he uses the couch in my neighbouring study, with all his papers on the floor that I have to step over.   
But I like him being in the room with me, both working in silence, being able to see each other when we look up.   
I think he uses his study when I am at work.

The house warming party went well, I was happy to introduce Oliver to colleagues and old friends; some of them knew about him from my drunken laments in the past, others were just happy that I was settled down at last.   
Betta cornered Oliver almost the minute she arrived; I filled up her glass with prosecco and freed him.   
“Thank you Elio, the last time I was so thoroughly interrogated was in high school!”   
“I fear Betta is quite protective, but she was the first student that graduated in my course, so I fear it is mutual, you should see how I behave when she introduces me to any of her poor boyfriends…”   
Some of Oliver’s new colleagues are also invited, they fit in so well with my friends I am relived; I need Oliver to feel at home, to have friends and colleagues, a life other than me. He has given up so much and when I think about it guilt overwhelms me.

After the last guest has left we go onto the terrace, the early October night is still mild, and I light a cigarette.  
“You should stop smoking Elio; it is not good for you!” Oliver looks concerned.   
“How many times have you stopped smoking Oliver? I have actually cut the amount I smoke ever since you have been back in my life…”  
“I can sell myself as a give up smoking device? I could earn a fortune.” Oliver smiles and leans on the railing.   
“There is a problem Oliver, I have cut down because the fantastic sex calms me, and I am not going to share you with anyone!” I stand next to him and play with his fingers.   
He looks at me with so much love that I feel my knees buckle. “I do worry about your health Elio; I could not survive without you!”   
I rub up against him and whisper into his ear “Then ravish me, it is the best exercise I know of!”  
The kiss we exchange is long and deep under the Rome sky; we were shown many years ago the life we could have had, but we were too young.   
I wonder if the kiss at Santa Maria dell’Anima was actually a promise, because we are now here, and I am living the life I dreamed of, better than dreams, since there is Oliver when I wake.

We settle into a new routine, in the mornings we have breakfast together and set off to our jobs; we part at the end of the road and see each other in the evenings arguing what to have for dinner.  
We are both free on Thursday afternoons and Oliver works in my study, and he took the opportunity to tell me what had been on his mind for a while. 

I was reading an email from Tiziano, we kept in touch after the library meeting, and I could not help showing Oliver the photo.  
“Look Oliver, Tiziano and Hiro’s adoption has gone through! She is lovely…”  
Oliver leaned over me to examine the photo of them holding a small girl, all three had radiant smiles.   
He turned towards me with such a loving and pained expression that I could not stop myself “What is wrong Oliver?”  
“You would be such a great father Elio, please let me know if you want to adopt or have a surrogate, just because I have my boys doesn’t mean you have to give up on fatherhood!”  
I nearly fall off my chair.   
“Oliver, what put that in your mind?” I knew that since the summer he had been thinking something over; I was not worried; I knew that he would tell me what was troubling him when he was ready, but I never expected that I was cause of concern.

“Elio you are so good with children and adolescents. Your relationship with Elena and Teresa and with my sons is so good, but seeing you with such a difficult teen as Tancredi was a revelation. You never speak down to them, you listen and there is real concern for them. You would be such a fantastic father that I do not want to deny you this life changing experience!”

There are few times I am speechless, I generally speak too much too fast, but this time I realise I need to choose my words carefully.   
“Oliver, I am a spoilt man, a spoilt privileged man. I have lived on my own for many years and I liked it, there was only one thing missing in my life, and that was you.” I caress his face looking at him.  
“I was used to think only for myself, but in these months I have learned to think about us, and I love to do so, decisions are taken between us, except for grand pianos.”   
He smiled at me; grand piano was definitely our new code word for divergent opinions.  
“I love easily, and loving Julian, Alex, Teresa and Elena come naturally, even understanding Tancredi; but looking after is different. I know that all the difficult decisions, the sleepless nights, the worry and the daily unpleasant things are not my burden. I enjoy the best of them and then at the end of the day, I give them back to the parents.”   
I took his hands and squeezed them.

“I worry over you all the time Oliver, if you are happy, if you have problems, if you are sleeping well… I have learnt not to hassle you and just be close, I have learned to look after someone with you. But if I had to worry for someone else as I do for you, it would kill me!”   
I kissed him lightly, my loved and adored Oliver.

Oliver hugged me “I love how you are so freely happy for others without wanting the same, how your instinct is to see the best. But you do worry for someone else as much as me, when Titus was lost this summer I thought you were having a seizure!”  
I hid my face against his chest, breathing his scent and feeling the beat of his heart.   
“Titus is my first pet…” My voice was muffled “I thought I was your first pet!” Oliver’s tone sounded hurt.   
I brought his head down and kissed him deeply.  
“You were, but you got away and it took a long time to find you again; I am extremely careful now not to let my pets out of sight.”  
Oliver laughs, and, taking my hand, we walk to the bedroom.


	26. Archaeology of the Soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elio and Oliver on holiday, as well as being terribly fluffy, Oliver opens a bit about his parents…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the lovely comments! I am so happy that Elio and Oliver’s adventures as older and slightly wiser resonates! I am slowly moving the story into a direction I had thought of right at the start…

I think that the grand piano weighs on Elio, he feels guilty buying it, and he looks at me wondering if I think of him as a spoilt child. I do, but that is one of the things I love about him.   
Being Elio, he overcompensates, so my birthday was an orgy of gifts and treats; the bedroom ones were much appreciated, Elio riding me while I was tied to the bedpost was one of the most mind blowing experiences ever, but having to use only my hips to thrust into him was quite painful the next day. The sorrows of growing older.

As I received a new pea coat, a couple of books, an 18th century astrolabe and external memory disk I had been thinking of buying, I just begged him to stop, I was overwhelmed. He smiled shyly and handed over an envelope “This is the last thing, I promise!”  
There was a letter and a travel coupon. As I read the letter I choked up.

“Dear Elio,  
You are so dear to me that I am afraid I can never express fully how much I love you; a lifetime is not enough. Since the beginning you have been the first of so many of my formative experiences, much more than sexual. My first love, my first broken heart, my first (and last) hope of starting again. But one memory is seared in my heart, our trip to Rome, my first trip with the person I love. We have both travelled a lot in our life, we have had many other firsts, but I want to treat you and myself to a first time in a city for both of us, discovering a place together. Your choice.  
Love Oliver"

“Elio, this…” I could feel the tears threatening to overflow.   
He kissed me on the check, rapidly licking a stray tear. “Just give me the list of the places you have never visited and we can decide!”

\----

The view from the hotel terrace is magnificent; the entire city seems to be below us, sprawled and ready to be explored.   
“I always wanted to visit Istanbul, but the plans kept getting postponed. It was destiny I would be here with you!” Elio hugs me from behind, pressing against me.   
I smile how, as a Classicist, that I never set foot here was actually a crime.   
We have an intense program for three days, and much arguing on what to leave out. We did agree to spend the day at Hagia Sophia and explore what remained of the Byzantine capital.   
As we walked through the harem of the Topkapi Palace I whispered to Elio “I can imagine you being my favourite, locked away from prying eyes after buying you in the slave market…”  
“Oliver, sometimes your fantasies worry me…” Elio arches an eyebrow and looks at me; I laugh “So says the man who had his way with a peach!” I know he will be indignant.  
“Oliver, I was a horny teenager, but you were the one who ate the defiled peach, what was your excuse?”  
I raised my hands in the air calling for a truce. “Sorry, just that this place brings out all my worst possessive traits.”   
As we walked towards the gardens admiring the pavilions Elio took my hand “We can role play a bit tonight, after all it is your birthday treat.”   
“So you are going to be sweet and submissive?” The hope in my voice was crushed immediately when Elio smiled “Sweet always, submissive we need to negotiate.”

We visited mosques, churches, ruins and cavernous cisterns; Elio photographed the cats that owned the streets, we stopped for tea and sweets.   
I was so tired as we returned to the hotel that I was sure there would be no playing at bed time. 

After I showered I joined Elio on the hotel terrace; he was talking to the very good looking waiter, Mesut, and I felt that quiver of jealousy.   
Elio smiled as he saw me and Mesut brought me a beer and a dish of olives before I even asked.  
“He is hoping to move to Europe, his English is good and is finishing his degree in engineering.” Elio took a puff from his cigarette, the first of the day to my delight, and looked out towards the Bosporus.   
“Hoping to live his life freely, to be what he is without being penalised. I have been very lucky Oliver, I know I am spoilt and privileged, but I am aware of it.”   
He sounded so sad.  
I took a sip of beer, it is strange how being in an alien place helps you to be more open, as though the brakes you place in your daily life have been tampered with.  
“One of the first things I thought when I met you that summer was how free you were; free to think and act as you wanted, even with the youthful constraints we place upon ourselves.”   
I looked at him, and even twenty odd years later I could see the seventeen year old so clearly, he had changed, as I had, time is unforgiving, but the core was the same, the core of his being that had pulled me towards him. 

“I wondered at first if my attraction towards you was based on wanting your life, having you would be being you; I suppose that was one of the reasons I pulled back. But I soon realised that you were you, the better part of me, and all the rest was just a fantastic extra, and I let myself go for the first time in my life. I was what I wanted to be, ever since I had the clarity of knowing what adult life could be, and not what was expected.”  
Elio was listening attentively; his body poised towards me, not touching, but ready to embrace me if he saw me crumble. 

“I envied your parents, Annella and Pro were splendid human beings, and the way they let you free to explore but ready to catch you when you stumbled. My parents were not remotely similar, actually, the total opposite.” I had rarely talked about my parents, I could see Elio looking at me surprised and slightly worried. 

“My parents caged me in and would berate me when I stumbled. I soon earned money to be as independent as I could be, I studied hard to show them I was right in my choice of studies; I tried to be the best because I wanted to be acknowledged by them, but it was never enough.”  
I could feel the anger, resentment and sadness bubble up to the surface, the weight of years could never conceal the pain that you feel as a child.

Elio squeezed my knee, encouraging me to say or do what I felt, that I did not owe him any explanations if it was too hard for me. I covered his hand with mine.  
“That summer taught me that there were many other ways to live and be a parent, but I do regret falling immediately back in line once back home. I wonder if it was my last attempt to be a loved son. But I lost so much and caused you so much pain.”

“Oliver, please, do not dwell on what could have been, it is past and we can never undue it. Look at the city under us, it has seen empires crumble, how many times must it have thought it was the end of the world and each time start again?”  
He looked at the city lights, his beautiful profile entranced me as the first time I noticed it.   
“We have all won and lost so many hands of cards, but each time we play because there is no alternative. Oliver, I hope you know that my parents loved you; they never judged you and always thought you were part of the villa family. That summer I was so envious of how much everybody liked you and listened to you, how you were so beautiful and knowledgeable; but the envy was actually love, and it is a love that never died. Like an eternal city the embers of my love survived under rubble of time and pain to flare up again. Now this love is a comforting fire that warms me every time you are beside me.”

We kissed and cuddled under the stars of Constantinople, as many lovers had done before.   
As we got up to go back to our room, Elio said “So, tonight I am the slave you bought, what are you going to do to me, master?”  
“Many unspeakable things my darling!”


	27. As the Year Ends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christmas holidays with Oliver’s sons and nature’s cunning ways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for comments and kudos, I really appreciate them, I am having a bad writer’s block at the moment, half a chapter of Golden Sun I want to throw out of the window, the started next chapter of Coda I cannot bear to look at and a one shot lingering somewhere in my laptop. Having a ton of work related dramas on top of it all has not helped, so I hope all will get back to normal soon with Golden Sun and Coda.

Thanksgiving had been hard for Oliver, the first time without his sons; but I did not have any leave for that week and his sons did not feel like flying over to Rome.   
I reminded him that finding a large turkey in Rome would have been a task. He knew that it would have happened sooner or later, but knowing and then it happening were two different emotions.  
We spent Thanksgiving and Hanukah just the two of us, intimate moments creating new rituals as a couple; each bringing something meaningful, a family tradition, and carefully transplant it into our relationship.

Julian and Alex came over for Christmas and the New Year, and after my birthday and Christmas at the villa, we decided that to imprison two young men in the middle of nowhere during New Year was cruel, so we travelled back in Rome.  
“I have been told there is a great party in a villa on the Appia, shall we go bro?” Julian had been on his phone all week; so had Alex, but while Julian was full of energy, Alex had been wilting.  
“And who told you?” I asked raising an eyebrow; Julian just gave me a knowing smile.

I sat at the grand piano and lovingly stroked the antique scores Oliver had given me as a birthday present, hours of music to play and scores to transcribe.   
I heard Oliver singing “Night and Day” in the kitchen, having all of us in the flat brought out the MasterChef in him; he had been overfeeding us nonstop. I was so happy that I was afraid, nature and her ways were always lurking somewhere close.

“Is she still angry with you? I mean you haven’t seen dad for nearly a year, she cannot make such a drama about it!” Julian’s voice had an unusual sharp tone to it and I looked up; the boys (or young men now) were standing looking at each other, Julian with a worried look and Alex defiant.   
I was an only child, I do not know how sibling relationships work, but I suppose, like all relationships, each has their own dynamic.  
Just because you share the same blood doesn’t mean you share all the rest; we forge connections throughout our life with people, and sometimes they happen to be related to us. But Oliver’s sons had always seemed to be two sides of the same coin, different but the same. I had never seen them argue, I suppose as children they did, with the need to find limits and define their personalities; but as adults they seemed so attune.

“Julian, mind your own business, I miss her and she misses me, there is nothing wrong, it is not my fault if you cannot last in a stable relationship and do not understand how it works!”  
Oliver ran out of the kitchen with a worried expression as Julian clenched his fist and spoke so quietly that I was not sure I heard him say “I would like my brother back, but he seems to have gone for good.”   
He walked to the front door and went out before any of us could react.   
Alex stood still, his emotions were bubbling so close to the surface, hurt, defiant, angry and upset; I looked at Oliver and he nodded as he placed his hand on Alex’s shoulder and asked “Do you want to talk little Conqueror?”   
I grabbed my coat and Julian’s and followed him outside.

“Julian, please do not catch pneumonia, it ruins the grand exit. Here is your coat and here am I if you want to vent!”   
He took the coat without looking at me, head down; we both stood in the middle of the street wondering if it was safe to talk first, till a car passed us and we both moved away, bumping into each other.  
“I am sorry Elio, but I do not want to go back into the flat, care to walk for a bit?”  
I nodded, and we crossed side streets till we were in front of the Imperial Forums, all lit up in warm golden light. 

I leaned against a railing, while Julian just crumpled onto it.   
He broke the silence “Do you have a cigarette Elio?”  
“Sorry, I am trying to stop; your father has been pestering me. We can cross the road to a tobacconist if you want?”  
Julian shook his head “Just wanted an excuse not to talk for a while; I really do not know what has happened between us, or I know, but I cannot manage to be adult about it…”  
“Being an adult is overrated, sometimes we have deeper understanding when being childish, there are no society filters to mislead us.”   
Of course, I have never left my childish streak, and, if I am ashamed of it, I am aware that it has its uses sometimes.

“There is childish and childish, Elio. Sometimes it is just being unable to understand that things change. Alex has a girlfriend I really do not like, and I know she is his girlfriend and it is up to him to date who he likes, but the thought of her being part of my family upsets me.”  
I wondered if my parents ever had such feelings about my lovers? Not that they met many of them, but it is difficult to see someone you are fond of being with someone unlikeable, but sometimes nobody can live up to the person you love.

“What do you dislike about her? Does she have a name?”  
“Emely, she is just so needy and has never moved for him, Alex has met her parents, but she has never wanted to meet me, mom or dad. I have the feeling she is ashamed of us and is trying to pull Alex away from us. And I am not helping, am I?”  
I gave him a quick hug, he looked so unhappy.   
“I am sure Alex will never leave you, he just wants some stability that she can give him; the two of you have been through so much in the last few years. So many changes, it is difficult to keep track of who one is.”  
Julian nodded, he had been through a lot, and he knew that he had not considered how it had affected his brother. 

“I think I am going out tonight, I need to distract myself.”  
“You do know that your father feels about Tancredi as you do about Emely…”   
I smiled at his expression of utter horror; “Yes, I know that the two of you have been texting during Christmas, I was your age once, difficult to believe.”  
“But Tancredi is not my boyfriend! He is just a friend, someone I feel that I can talk to, there is nothing for dad to worry about!”  
Julian gave me a pleading look, and I reassured him that I would not tell Oliver, unless he got caught up in any of Tancredi’s wild ideas.  
I watched Julian walk away, his hands in his pockets, head down, and wondered if there was anything I could do; in many ways my existence had caused so many problems to both of Oliver’s sons. I had broken a family, took their father away to another country and taken their acceptance of me for granted.

Back in the flat Oliver was sitting alone on the couch; he looked tired and I just wanted to pick him up and murmur that all was going to be ok, that the bumps on the road would clear; that we all loved him because he was a wonderful person and none of what happened was his fault.   
I placed my arms around him and he took a deep breath, both sitting quietly, learning to lean onto each other when things seemed difficult.   
He was my foundation, but I needed to make sure he was solid, I would never ignore his needs.  
Alex was talking in the study, he seemed to be slightly agitated, but I could only catch the tone of his voice, not the words; a foreign language film with no subtitles.  
Oliver rested his head on my shoulder and I stroked his arm.

Alex ran into the room “Dad, it was mom on the phone, your father has had a stroke, they think he has little time left. She thought you should know.”   
His expression was cold as his voice, a mask hiding all his feelings; feelings I was sure where swirling wildly underneath in this young man so similar to my lover.  
Oliver shuddered; nature has cunning ways of finding our weakest spots.


	28. Return to the Incipit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver returns to his childhood town and thinks back to his past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for comments and kudos! This is a long stretch for Oliver, and I shall explore his childhood. It will be interesting, hopefully the writer's block will evaporate!

As soon as Elio went after Julian, I turned to Alex; I had been used to their childish squabbles when they were small, but there was a biting tone this time that worried me.  
“Alex, please what’s wrong? You can tell me.”  
He did not look at me, just mumbled “Julian is being the usual jerk.”  
I nodded, as brothers they were good at finding each-others weak spots.   
“And you were a sweet candy with him?” I kept my tone light, but Alex still did not look at me.   
“Emely is important to me, she needs me, she has been through so much. I miss her and I do not need Julian belittling her!” 

I sat on the couch and patted the space next to me “Tell me about her, I am glad you have someone important, but you have never told me anything about Emely, I would like to get to know her.”  
“She is sweet, I feel the need to protect her, she has been through so much shit, but she is so strong. I feel that with her I can build something, I am sorry if I haven’t had the chance to bring her to Italy, but she is afraid to fly long haul, but the next time you are over I shall make sure you meet her.”  
I nodded “Yes, if she is important to you, she will be important to me. I am sure once Julian meets her he will feel the same.”   
I placed my arm around his shoulder and he leaned against me, as when he was young. As we sat there in silence I wondered how Elio was getting along with Julian. 

Alex’s phone rang, as he looked at the caller he got up “its mom, do you mind if I go into my room?”  
It was still a bit tense when Sarah was involved, she had started dating again and we had had spoken on the phone a couple of times, but our history was complicated and painful; it would take time to leave it all behind, and I realised it was my guilt hindering the healing, she had forgiven me and moved on.  
Elio came back without Julian, but reassured me that he was just going out for the evening.   
I know that they are both hiding something, that they share a secret, but Elio would tell me when necessary; that Julian trusts him is comforting. I lean against him seeking his warmth.  
Alex reappears. “Dad, it was mom on the phone, your father has had a stroke, they think he has little time left. She thought you should know.”  
My past once more was barging into my new life.  
\----  
Elio organised the plane tickets, I was too numb to do anything; as I sat next to him I watched him finally sleep, he was such a nervous flyer.   
The boys were still not talking to each other. Julian had cried when he was told about his grandfather, Alex hardly said anything.   
I tried to remember my father other than the last time I saw him, when I had divorced Sarah, as he told me I was his biggest regret.   
There was no need for him to tell me, I had felt it for years.   
I had been chasing approval since I could remember, and since I had stopped playing this never ending game of tag that I could never win, I had found myself.   
I wonder who I would have been if I could have been free to explore earlier in life, what Oliver would have been moulded by different experiences. But Elio would, must, have been in my life; it would be unbearable to think differently.

At the airport I decided to drive to my parent’s town, and, as the car sped through snow covered scenery, all were quiet; Elio was lost in thought looking out of the window at the fast moving scenery.

“Look Ollie, that is a swallow!” I think it is the earliest memory of my father; he was younger than I can remember him, as he holds me and points to a bird in the sky.   
A bike for my birthday and him running behind me, making sure I would not fall off.   
Taking me to the Little League baseball and cheering me on.   
When did our relationship fracture? When did I become a regret?   
When I started studying what interested me? When I started to answer back and be independent?   
Or did my parents sense something before I was aware? As adolescence hit me my relationship with my parents shifted.   
There was no need to kill my father, he had decided to kill something in me, slowly, daily picking upon things that he felt were wrong, trying to adjust me to the image he wanted from his son.   
And I quietly rebelled, earning money to be independent in what I bought, in what I studied.   
But I know that every time I look at my boys, feeling overwhelmed by the love I have for them, I wanted the same gaze upon me; the gaze I felt as a small child.

As I park in front of the motel I see Sarah waiting for us; Julian had phoned his mother, needing her.  
She embraces her sons, Elio stands shyly behind me, unsure what his role is; his role is being my pillar, he holds me up when I am crumbling, I grab his hand and he smiles at me.  
“Oliver, I am just back from the hospital, it is not good, he is in a pharmaceutical coma. Nancy is going to decide when to let him go, and I think it will be soon.”   
Sarah looks so tired, I am sorry that she has to deal with my parents as well as her own.  
“Do not worry Oliver, they are so like mine that I have no problem with them!” she used to say, when we were young and she thought everything was possible.

Nothing was possible, I was not playing her game, I wasn’t even in her team.  
“Do you want to see him? I can let you know when Nancy is not in the hospital if you want to avoid her.”  
Did I want to see him? The shell of the man I loved as a child, feared as a boy and judged as he judged me as an adult?   
Yes, I needed to see him, the child that keeps on living within us wanted to say goodbye.   
I nodded to Sarah “Yes, let me know. I do not think I have the strength to face mother at the moment, but I shall do that as well.”  
Elio rubs my arm, a small quiet gesture, but it keeps the savage sob, that is forming in my chest, at bay. I shall release it when alone, to mourn the man I did love, the man I wanted to love, the man I needed to love.   
The man who should have loved me.


	29. Faded Photos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elio tries to keep close to Oliver and thinks back on his childhood. Alex listens to Elio.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for comments! This is a short angsty chapter.   
> I am a bit blocked on Golden Sun, we are moving into complicated territory, and I am overwhelmed by planning, but it will be back soon!

I have been to New England many times, for study and, rarely, for pleasure; but I am looking at the houses passing by with new eyes.   
All in a row, all neat front yards, nice cars parked in the drive, little boxes row upon row; the feeling that the nail that sticks out will be quickly hammered down.  
Oliver has hardly spoken since Rome; he is keeping all his feelings bottled, afraid of what might come out. He is trying to wear a mask once more, but it is difficult for him this time.  
I try to imagine Oliver as a child running along these streets; how did he dress, how did he look like, the ring of his laughter, the taste of his tears.   
Child Oliver, unknown to me, but I feel he was always in my life, so I should be able to place this child somewhere in my past; sitting under a peach tree watching the grasshoppers together, I can create this image.

As the car stops in front of a none descript motel I see Sarah; of course she would be there, you do not erase twenty years in twenty months.   
I shyly say “Hi” feeling the weight of all the guilt in the world, guilty for loving her husband, guilty for existing. Oliver leans against me, such a slight movement, but I know he is going to break any moment, so I quickly get him to our room.   
He just lies on the bed and sobs. As some sort of deformed Pieta’ I cradle his head for an eternity.  
“I cannot go to the hospital Elio, I will feel that he will reject me once again, even the shell kept alive by machines will turn away from me.”   
“You cannot tell if he is doing so Oliver. But do what you feel you need to do, you are not forced any longer, you are free.”  
I felt his sob and thought how unfair life is; I would have loved to say goodbye to my father, but he died even before the ambulance arrived, there was no time for me to rush to his side and hold his hand.   
With mother I held her hand till her last breath, but father rushed away from us.  
I cannot say this to Oliver; his relationship with his parents is different from mine.   
They fuck you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do.   
Larking was right, even the most loving; generations of fears move along a family tree. Rarely is it broken, but the man in my arms tried, and, I think, managed to start something new with his loved sons.

Dinner was a silent affair, Alex worried me, the others were too absorbed in their sorrow, but Alex was a stone effigy.   
There was little sleep for me and Oliver, he tossed and turned and I could only try to hold him.   
“He is shy” “He likes you more than you do” “He is more than good”.   
All the people long gone return to tell me how much they had loved Oliver, how lucky I am in being loved by him; if only I could let him know this, transfer the scenes from my memories into his being.

I drive them to the hospital in the morning. I watch Oliver and Julian walk towards the visitor entrance; the building is new and sterile, triumph of science over human emotion, white against the snow, blending into a nothingness.  
Alex sits next to me in the car. “So you are not going to see him?” I ask the obvious.  
“I hate him. The things he said about dad and Julian cannot be taken back, not that he wanted to recant them. I do not understand why they are so upset.”  
He looked straight ahead, but he was actually watching a reel of the past flashing in front of him.   
“Sometimes we love without reason, we love who we need to love us back Alex. He hurt them both, but they are making a pilgrimage of forgiveness, to close a chapter of their lives and move forward. Only God knows if he repented and will given Kapparah, but your father and Julian are willing to grant Mechilah to him without any request.”

Alex was holding back tears, and I wanted him to shed them, to cry and cleanse himself of anger and hurt.  
“Elio, I can’t, I can’t, I am not a nice person. I feel all the pain that festered within the family; my father’s and my mother’s. Years trying to live up to a standard that wasn’t theirs, how the unhappiness slowly seeped into them. I cannot bear to think that they are upset that that man is dying.”  
Alex slumps into the car seat, telling me all that was festering inside him has emptied him.   
I somehow I needed to help this young man.  
“My father was different from Oliver’s, so I cannot compare in any way my reaction to his, but he died suddenly and I did not have a chance to say goodbye to him. Only at the funeral, and there was no privacy there. I was unhinged for quite a few years after, I masked the pain, but it appeared suddenly, quietly undermining my life. Oliver and Julian have a choice and they are acting accordingly; neither wants you to follow them, but what they both need is you to be close to them and be at peace with your decision. Neither of them will judge you or think less of you, but please do show them how much you love them.”  
Alex sat thinking my words over and then opened the car door and walked to the entrance of the hospital; I did not know if he was going to say goodbye to his grandfather or just wait for his brother and father outside the door.   
It didn’t matter, he was walking towards them.  
I could now sit and wait peacefully. 

I thought of my family album, old photos of me as a child, at the zoo, opening birthday presents and blowing out candles on birthday cakes, looking bored during family holidays, building sandcastles with my father.   
My mother took most of them, as most mothers, trying to fix the brief moment of childhood.   
Oliver has many photos of Alex and Julian throughout their childhood.   
Thinking of the boys baby faces I create a young Oliver, similar to his sons; he slowly takes shape, round face and blue eyes, white blond hair and button nose.   
I insert him into my faded childhood photos; at the zoo he is looking at the giraffe, he helps me unwrap a present, he holds my hand and he is scooping up sand to build the sandcastle moat.   
I could never imagine not having him in my life; even during the wilderness years he was there in a corner of my soul and now I have inserted him in my childhood.


	30. White Noise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver visits his father in hospital and sees his mother at the funeral.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for comments and kudos! I am trying to create an Oliver in my mind… difficult!  
> I am writing very slowly at the moment, one chapter of Coda, one of Golden Sun, but at least I am back writing!

I have always hated hospitals; just the smell makes me feel ill. The mixture of disinfectant and fear, death and birth mingling with tears.   
I remember having my appendix out, I was nine, and the nights in the hospital bed, lying on the hard scratchy bedding, noises in the background, were unbearable.   
When Alex was born it was the first time I was at ease and happy to be in a ward, but the smell always disturbed me.

My father is a shell, the machines make strange sounds, as each beep is a second his life is uselessly elongated.   
I look at his profile, interrupted by a mask, and wonder who is this man? I share the DNA but he is a stranger.   
His dreams, his hopes, what were they? Who was the young man who had dreams, he must have had dreams, we all do.   
Regrets, achievements, a swirl of emotions I never noticed; was it my fault that I never noticed them or did he hide them carefully. If so, I must have learnt well from him.  
Julian looks at his grandfather with desolation, it is the first time he is dealing with death, apart from Bud the Labrador, and that was terrible for him.  
I hug him, my loving son, and feel I should have hugged both of them a million more times during their lifetime.   
The machines buzz and beep, steadily, as a life slowly evaporates.

Sarah is at the door, with Alex behind her “Oliver, Martha is on her way, she called me a few minutes ago. The life support is going to be switched off.”   
I nod, I do not want to meet my mother on my father’s death bed, I can only face one regret at the time.   
I turn to the man in the bed for the last time and hope he can hear my thoughts of love, regret and sorrow. It should have been so different.  
“Blessed are You, Lord, our God, King of the universe, the Judge of Truth” I mutter under my breath.  
“Thank you Sarah, I am going now. I shall contact mother later, I will be at the funeral, I know how much appearances mean to her.” I try to smile, but I am sure it is a sorry imitation of a smile.  
Sarah is still as beautiful as when I met her, age has just solidified her features as a pagan statue of an Earth Mother, but I can read the tiredness in her eyes; tired of juggling emotions of a fractured family. I am sorry Sarah, so sorry for the mess I have caused.

Elio is waiting by the car, the boys are with their mother, I am walking towards my lover.   
He smiles as he sees me, a smile of greeting and love; I can fold into him and never feel weak or lessened.  
I call my mother later, my hand trembles as I hold the phone.  
“Sarah told me you were here, too busy to visit me I suppose.” Her voice was harsh; I do not remember her voice in any other tone.  
“I didn’t want to upset you in such a situation. I went to see father, and I will be at the funeral, with the boys. I shall not let you down. If you need any help, please let me know.”  
“Will that man be there as well?” Her tone is a mixture of revulsion and dread.  
“Elio will be close to me, but not at the funeral, I have no intention of creating a fuss or embarrassing you.”   
I wanted him close to me, but never close where he would be in some way hurt or demeaned.  
I turned to look at him as I finished the conversation, he was on the bed reading; pretending not to listen to the phone call.   
His hair has grown and the usual stray curl was falling onto his forehead; the curl I had twisted round my fingers a million times and kissed a million more.   
Elio the start and the end of my existence, the love that would never go away, as a fierce terrier that has grabbed a prey, it held on over the years; I was grateful of this, when I die they will find Elio inscribed on my heart.  
He put the book down and looked up at me “I have your suit ready, I suppose the funeral home have the ribbons. Let me know what you need and I will do it.” He looked at me with so much love, as a father, a brother, a lover.  
As I moved towards him he opened his arms wide as to gather me; I hugged him till I was afraid of crushing him.

The morning was cold but bright, blue sky filling the short horizon; we all met in the motel parking lot, all dressed in black as a gathering of crows.   
We are all silent as we drive to the cemetery, Sarah in the car with us, holding the boys. Elio pinned the black ribbon on my lapel, I did the same for my sons, a ritual of mourning that Elio knew so well.  
As we got out of the car I squeezed Elio’s hand, to tell him I was not leaving him behind, he squeezed it back to let me know he knew, and would be waiting for me.  
As I slowly tore the ribbon I looked at my mother standing surrounded by friends and neighbours, she was impeccably turned out as usual, but, just for a moment, I caught her hungry look as she watched Sarah with the boys.   
I looked into her soul and it was full of pain, the impossibility of taking back things said and done, of stepping down from the pedestal she had climbed onto; it was too high.   
I felt like embracing her, but the fear of rejection was still childishly strong.  
The hole in the ground, where my father was being lowered into, seemed so deep and final; the words of eulogy were a white noise in my head; words caught randomly had nothing to do with the man I had so desperately wanted to love.  
I picked up the spade and threw soil over the casket, each time I did so I forgave him for the pain, but I also asked him to forgive me for not being the son he had wanted.  
I placed the shovel into the mound and watched Alex and Julian repeat the same ritual and wondered what they were thinking; that private and painful moment of severance.

As we all made our way towards the cemetery exit I turned towards my mother “Let me know if you need anything, I really meant it yesterday; I am not going to disappear, I never wanted to, and it is not for some sort of duty. There is time mother, there is always time to mend and heal, please believe me.”   
She nodded, but did not look at me.

That night I slept while Elio held me tight, my face nestled in his curls; his breathing seemed to be synchronised to my heart beat.  
I dreamt the past, the childhood full of delights when I was secure within the embrace of my parents, when I was slowly discovering the world within the confines of my home and neighbourhood.   
“Look Ollie, they are swallows! They travel during winter looking for the warmth, but return every year to their nest!”   
I am in my father’s arms and I look up to the birds flying in the blue sky. He is looking up as well, his fine profile and laughter lines around his eyes.   
“Daddy, why do they return? Isn’t’ it boring to always return in the same place?”   
He looks at me startled, and I suppose the first crack formed in that moment.


	31. Fragile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elio and Oliver are back in Rome and deal with lingering feelings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for comments! Sorry for the delay, but my laptop is dying and keeps closing down. I am not happy with this chapter, but I did not have much time to work on it; I feel that what I have not managed to express what I wanted to convey. Quite frustrated, and with my laptop in this state, I fear the updates will be slower fot Coda and Golden Sun.

It was raining; I could hear the drops bouncing off the windowsill. Outside, in the street, car horns were blearing and I could hear the echo of angry voices shouting.  
I was on the couch, Titus purring while curled up on my chest, I, we, were back home. Our home.  
We were slowly getting back to normal, Oliver was back teaching, I was as usual trying to organize seminars, lessons, read thesis and plan exams.  
But things were not quite normal.  
I know that I am so careful around Oliver, I want him to be comfortable, I want him to be happy; I need to give him all he needs, I feel ill if I sense him far away in some sad thought.  
As I agree to any of his ideas, from what to have for dinner to how to spend the weekend, I notice the look he gives me, perplexed, as though he is wondering who am I.

I tickle Titus under the chin, and wonder who is this Elio afraid to speak?  
I know who he is, and I am ashamed. I have simply projected my pain onto Oliver; I am treating my love as though he is me and feels the way I did, when father died.  
I am afraid our relationship will end as mine did with Tiziano.  
I fear his pain, I fear mine; I have lived holding onto the pain of losing Oliver all my life, keeping it in a secret corner of my soul.  
Now that we are together I need to be bold with my feelings, since they do revolve around him. I cannot continue thinking I will lose him once more.  
Oliver deserves better than that. I get up, gently placing Titus in the warm spot I vacated; he looks outraged, and I smile.  
I am not going to treat Oliver as a fragile object any longer, but as the man I have longed for twenty years, the only person that makes me complete; even when I am irrational.

It is raining hard now, I watch the large doorway of the university building, students straggle out and stop looking at the rain with dismayed expressions.  
The dark clouds have dimmed all colours from the city, there is a small of cold dampness that fills my lung; I feel my hair wet and dripping while I stand and hold the umbrella.  
Oliver strides out of the building, he casually lifts the collar of his coat and hunches his shoulders as to fight the weather; I call my, his, name.  
“Elio!” He turns and smiles  
“Oliver, you are soaking! What are you doing here?” He tries to fit under the umbrella, but he is too large; I have to raise my arm so he fits so close to me that I can smell him.  
“I was waiting for you, I know you hate taking an umbrella with you. Also, I haven’t seen you since eight this morning and I missed you!”  
I kiss him lightly on the lips.  
“You walked here? In this rain? Elio, you will catch a cold!”  
“I wanted to walk towards you, like all good stories, you must go through some sort of hardship before reaching the prize at the end, but there are no rainbows at the moment. I also wanted to think, walking is therapeutic.”  
His smile fades; he hates the words “I wanted to think”; he always fears the worse, just like I do.  
Too late to take them back, I squeeze his hand “Let’s find a taxi, I am not walking back or waiting for an overcrowded bus!”  
I smiled at him, no, it was not a smile, how could a simple movement of muscles around the lips convey all the feelings I have for this man?  
As we sit in the back of the cab I discreetly hold his hand; we both look ahead, I like the fact that we are both looking ahead, towards what is waiting for us, not back.

The minute we were through the door I ran into the bathroom and turned the bath taps on. Oliver followed me and grabbing a towel he tried to rub my hair dry.  
“I do not want you to catch a cold Elio, you are a whiny nightmare when you are ill!” He laughed and I smiled while I poured bath bubbles into the water.  
I had chosen the tub especially, a bit larger than normal ones, so that Oliver could fit in with me.  
I had not managed to entice him to join me in a bath; he was such a quick shower man. I join him often in the shower to make sure it was not so quick, that was pleasurable, but today I was greedy.  
I took off my wet clothes and hugged him before he could leave the bathroom.  
“I need warming up Oliver, join me…” my voice was low as I could get it; almost purring.  
I closed the tap and lowered myself in the bath and smiled at him.  
He just looked at me, his mouth slightly open and he took off his clothes quickly.  
As he lowered himself between my legs, there was a minor tsunami in the tub, the water threatened to overflow and I rested my cheek on the large back.

I could feel myself hardening against his lower back, feeling the cheeks of his bottom against my groin; but strangely sex wasn’t on my mind.  
He leaned gently against me, his weight pushing me back, I could feel him unwinding slowly, relaxing as though we were in an ammonic sac.  
Tied by an umbilical cord that was beyond brotherhood, it tied us before we were born, waiting for us to meet and be afraid, lost, divided and then meet again.  
I do not know if nine minutes or nine months had passed, but when I moved, he did also.

“The water is getting cold Elio, shall we get out?” I shook my head against his back; I needed to hold him still.  
“I am going to wash your hair, your back, all of you”.  
I wet his hair and started to rub the shampoo into his scalp. His short fine hairs tangled into my fingers; I felt the roughness of the roots and the bumps in his skull, I knew them well, as I knew all his body.  
He sighed in pleasure, his weight felt heavy upon me, but I did not mind. I could carry his weight, as Atlas, for eternity.  
We dried each other once we got out of the bath, such intimate gestures that were daily for us, but I never took them for granted.

“Elio, I missed you.” Oliver’s voice is low as he whispers in my ear; we are both on our bed holding each other.  
“I am sorry Oliver, I was afraid of hurting you, so I treated you as something precious and fragile. You are precious, but you are also my oak. I should never fear when you are beside me.”  
He smiled and kissed me. It was not time to fill each other but to find each other.  
The tempests of life feel as though they steer us off course, but actually take us to uncharted waters; the delight of new worlds something I want to share with him forever.  
It was still raining outside, the city was grey, but here there is the warmth of bodies entwined just as our souls are.  
Whispering silly words of devotion to each other till we fall asleep.


	32. The Seeping Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elio wakes from a nightmare and feels frightened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! I have been away for so long that I feel guilty! But work, laptop problems and a slight writer’s block have kept me away. I hope that during the holidays I will get back into the rhythm.  
> I am starting a new part for Elio and Oliver, where external problems knock at the door; Elio is the drama queen, but we love him for this reason.

The air is cold and I look at the tall buildings full of warm lights, but too far away to warm me.   
The noise of the water lapping deafens me; it is dark, as dark as an end.  
I clutch the small, so small, box close; it is strange that such a large man could partly fit into something so small.   
Buried in the garden at the villa, thrown into the Aegean in front of a temple of Apollo under a warm sun; sprinkled slightly in the Forum in front of Caesar’s temple and at Shelley’s headstone. Cor Cordium, how many hearts of hearts I had and were all torn from me.  
But here in the city where he was born I returned him, alone, so alone.  
The final goodbye to my father, standing in front of dark waters I free him, throw him as high as I can.   
I see so many faces of those who have left me, Jamie, Vimini, father, mother… Oliver.

The light weakly tries to edge its way into the room, I open my eyes, I am in my bed and Oliver is asleep next to me. I am trembling.  
I listen to his breathing like a worried mother to her child; he is next to me, asleep, a smile on his face, dreaming something pleasant. I am happy.  
I remember when I was young and arrogant that I thought it would be better that he was dead than not being able to have him.   
How cruel the young are; now I know that the knowledge of someone you love being somewhere on earth, alive, is the greatest gift. Even if separated you can hope to catch a glimpse of them somehow, maybe small talk if lucky; but death crushes hope and light into nothingness, an eternal darkness.  
Oliver is here and I fear losing him, but not in the silly loss of a break-up, but the real eternal loss of death.   
My new fear, my new obsession.

I slowly caress his face with my fingertips, not to wake him.   
I love gazing at him; “I adore you” I once said. I meant it. I still adore him.  
He sighs softly, his warm breath on the back of my hand; do I hear him mutter my name? Is it just my longing to hear my name in his voice?  
His grey hairs blend with the blonde; I need to count them all, and then count them again once finished.   
I need more of him each passing day, greedily I want more of him. So much that I am afraid.  
My finger is close to his lips; the mouth I have kissed a million times, explored, his mouth that has taken me to ecstasy while sucking me.   
“Elio” I call him softly; he smiles again and mutters “Oliver…”

I rest my head on his chest to hear his heartbeat and he caresses my hair.  
“Elio, it’s early, do you want a coffee?” His voice is full of sleep, but I feel no guilt in having woken him; I play with his nipple watching it harden as my tongue licks it.  
“Elio!” His voice deepens, he runs his hand down my back, slowly.  
“I don’t think I need coffee Oliver, I think I am quite awake, or at least certain parts of me are…”  
“That part of you never sleeps my dissoluto assoluto!”   
There is laughter in his voice, so I kiss him; I like trapping his laughter into my mouth.  
I need him in me, I need to feel his weight, sweat and breath upon my skin; I need to feel his warm skin to dispel the ghosts of my dream, to remind me he at least is here.  
The rhythm of our bodies follows known tunes, and as he enters me I accept all of him as part of my own body that resides elsewhere; I am complete as I cry out my name.  
Limbs lying heavily upon each other, the haze caused by pleasure lingering in our senses and that sweet feeling of tiredness, is the eternal aftermath that reminds me of the summer I met him.   
Years pass, we get older, but somehow we are always back in my room at the villa, entwined and spent.

Oliver rolls over and slowly gets up, he looks for a pair of boxers that were discarded last night; as he bends to put them on I lean over and bite his buttock.  
“Elio! That hurt!” He sounds slightly outraged and I giggle.   
He starts tickling me and we roll in the bed once more until he pins me down.  
“Say you’re sorry now!” I shake my head “Never, I shall bite such a lovely cheek again if I get the chance!”  
“You are impossible; I really do not know how you have the energy so early in the morning.”  
I do not want him to get up, not even for him to go to the bathroom, I want him holding me, I want his presence to keep the ghosts away, to dispel the feeling of my dream.   
He senses something of my feelings, he kisses the top of my head “Will be back in a moment, let me make some coffee”. I nod.

I hear him move around, he is so at home in the flat, and it makes me happy; I built it around him, thinking of him and his things, the way they would fill the space as to make it us.  
Titus jumps onto the bed purring and I stroke him absentmindedly, I feel so greedy that it frightens me; never let the gods know you are happy, they will take it away.  
I get up and go to the kitchen, just to watch Oliver prepare the coffee and make a mess; leaning against the door-frame, the domesticity of the scene almost brings me to tears.   
I must have stifled a sound, because he turns towards me.  
“Elio, what’s wrong?”   
There is worry in his beautiful blue eyes; I look at him standing just in his boxers, holding a coffee pot and looking at me, the scene fills me with happiness and dread.  
“Nothing, you are just so perfect!” I hug him and rest my head on his shoulder.   
Soon it will be spring, and the days warmer, the fears of the cold winter will melt and I will still have my Oliver next to me.   
My strong kind lover that is the centre of my universe. I only wish I could in some way let him know fully what he means to me. 

He kisses the top of my head “Elio, you must have had one of your nightmares, but I am here.”  
I nod, he is here now, in this moment, but that’s my fear that I cannot tell him, how long is this moment?   
My dreams have always meant something; they have showed me things that I did not quite catch when awake.  
But he is here, pouring the coffee while humming a song; that is all I need now, greed is a sin and I am a sinner.

“I am taking a shower, got to be at the university at 10.” He puts the coffee cup down.  
“Only if I join you!”  
He looks at me and smiles “Elio, where do you get the energy?”  
“I am your younger lover!” I run to the bathroom before he can lock himself in and I hear his laugh.  
Time is the enemy, but I have today and hopefully tomorrows; the future is not for us to know so I will take the present and bury my fears.


	33. Under a Benevolent Sky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oliver and Elio in England...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, but my laptop is freezing all the time. I need to buy a new one. Sob.

The day is magnificent, I watch the ladies wearing elaborate hats and walking carefully, as not to get their heels stuck in the grass; I can almost see Sebastian and Charles fitting in this scene.  
The Queen Anne period mansion is beautiful, tables have been set outside, drinks are being poured by waiters with impeccable manners. Men in morning suits are chatting and drinking while unbuttoning waistcoats; the day is warm for England in April. 

I sense him standing behind me without needing to turn.  
“Oliver, you’re an antisocial creature! Where is your charm that can melt stone hearts? I want the mouvie star back.”  
Elio is just breath-taking in his suit, his hair is almost tamed, the grey of his temples hidden by curls; he hands me a glass of champagne. He fits into the scene so perfectly, that the only thing missing is Aloysius under his arm.  
I might buy a teddy bear for him at the duty free, on the way back to Rome.  
“I do not know anyone, except the groom, and that is quite embarrassing!”  
I blush remembering the summer of three years ago at the villa, watching Elio and Richard with a mixture of pain, jealousy and regret.  
“Oh, Oliver, really, do not worry, you were especially invited, not just me. There is no anger today, just happiness. I am glad that Richard has found someone much better than I could ever be for him!”  
I really cannot understand how there could be anything better than Elio, the way his intelligence moves as quicksilver through words and music to catch references and ideas; how each feeling is processed and lived throughout his body and how he is totally open to me, the best, the worst and all in-between. 

Richard walks among the guests as an Apollo among his followers; next to him a normal man, with a sweet expression on plain features, kind brown eyes looking adoringly at his partner.  
“Simon doesn’t look like a ruthless hedge fund manager, does he?”  
“He is looking at his partner; I doubt he has the same expression at work. Do you have the same expression in class with your students that you have with me? Should I be jealous?” Elio smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach his eyes; I am ashamed to admit that it makes me giddy.  
I am so used to my insecurities that seeing them mirrored in Elio is a revelation.

“Elio, Oliver, I am so glad you both could make it!” Richard grabs Simon’s hand in silent reassurance while greeting us.  
As they chat, I look at Simon; both of us wondering why we are standing next to these two beautiful men, that would be much better together.  
When Elio told me that Richard had invited us to his civil partnership ceremony, I was surprised.  
I did not realise that he and Elio had kept in touch and that Richard would find someone to commit to so rapidly.  
But then I looked at Elio reading the email again with a relieved smile, and I understood. I understood why talking to Tiziano again had healed a wound.  
Elio had collected losses since that Christmas, since I told him I was getting married. Since I was not honest and he was too young to fully grasp the implication, I walked out of his life.  
Elio has learnt the alphabet of loss, I was the letter A, I gave him the first bitter pill, Annella the final loss, the Z.  
Richard and Simon smile at us and move towards other guests; Elio looks at them wistfully.  
“Shall we get a civil partnership or wait to get married?” My tone is light, almost banter, but somehow I hope for a serious answer.  
“No need, you are more myself than I am; a piece of paper cannot replicate the gift of a name, an identity. I am hungry, there is food inside!”  
He runs off, probably embarrassed by what he said.

 

The house is magnificent, panelled walls and large tables covered with white flowers.  
We sit next to Richard’s colleagues, the conversation flows about art and literature. I wonder how much things have changed in twenty years; if my younger self could have seen into the future, would he have taken a different path? Would I have fought for Elio instead of deciding that I did the best for both of us?  
What ifs is a silly game to play, Elio is here beside me talking to a young woman about Caravaggio.  
He is also rubbing my leg with his foot. I need to concentrate to maintain the conversation flowing; I want to kiss him, and more.  
After the speeches the guests move to the reception room, music is being played and Elio starts to dance; I am rooted to the spot till he drags me.  
“I cannot dance, you know it!”  
“But I realised I wanted you when you danced that summer; you looked so free and beautiful. Let us dance together for once, both free if older.”  
Dancing together, two men embracing and following the music, not hiding in some dark club, but at a reception.  
We are not the only ones swaying to the music; we were never the only ones.

Elio’s body pressing against me is intoxicating, his scent fills me, I rest my head on his curls and remember everything of that summer, how I felt myself for the first time and the fear, as well as the exhilaration, that came with it.  
Our bodies’ age but the heart is immortal; appearing intact among the ashes to be collected by loving hands and preserved in eternity.  
I feel Elio grab my bottom and sense his smile against my shoulder.  
“Be good in public my dissoluto” but there is no reprimand in my tone.  
“I had a peek upstairs and… shall we both snoop around?” He slowly maneuverers me towards the door; I followed his lead, as I have always done.  
As schoolchildren we checked that the coast was clear before running up the stairs. Elio opened a door into a bedroom “A four poster bed! It is huge Oliver; I need you on this bed, now!”  
His eyes darkened and I know that I cannot resist him as I kiss him.  
The bed is harder than it looks, we risk falling off as we roll entwined; the door will not lock, the thought that we could be caught at any moment adds urgency and excitement.  
His skin on mine as he enters me is warm; I feel his heartbeat in the pulsing of every part of him.  
We are not one heart but two that beat in an eternal harmony, distinct but entwined.  
He comes and falls onto me, his hands looking for me, needing to please me; I roll over and guide his hand. As I feel his touch, his fingers caressing me, I wonder how did I live without.

 

“Thank you for having us Richard, it was a beautiful day!” Elio smiles, the sun has set and the guests are starting to disperse.  
“I am glad you both could be here.”  
They embrace, dark curls and light waves, two men that have at last found what they were seeking, and are now content and happy for each other.  
As we turn towards the door, Richard laughs, “Four poster beds are such a let-down, they seem so comfortable.”  
He winks and I feel myself blush as Elio grins and drags me outside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promised something nice for Richard...   
> Hope to have a new laptop soon..


End file.
